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Bi-metal Temperature Sensors

Bi-metal Temperature Sensors

Solids tend to expand when heated. The amount that a solid sample will expand with increased temperature…


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Equivalent Series and Parallel Circuits

Equivalent Series and Parallel Circuits

Impedance in a series circuit is the orthogonal sum of resistance and reactance: \[Z = \sqrt{R^2 + (X_L -…


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Kirchhoff’s Current and Voltage Laws

Kirchhoff’s Current and Voltage Laws

Two extremely important principles in electric circuits were codified by Gustav Robert Kirchhoff in the year…


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Teaching Technical Theory

Teaching Technical Theory

Learning is not merely a process of information transfer. It is first and foremost a transformation of…


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Legal Code

Legal Code

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License By exercising the Licensed Rights (defined…


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On/off Control (Bang-bang Control)

On/off Control (Bang-bang Control)

Once while working as an instrument technician in an aluminum foundry, a mechanic asked me what it was that I…


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Applications of Spectroscopy for Analytical Measurement

Applications of Spectroscopy for Analytical Measurement

Much of our knowledge about atomic structure comes from experimental data relating the interaction between…


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Proximity Switches

Proximity Switches

A proximity switch is one detecting the proximity (closeness) of some object. By definition, these switches…


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Measuring Electrical Conductivity

Measuring Electrical Conductivity

The electrical conductivity of liquids is an important analytical measurement in many industrial processes.…


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Analytical Measurements of Chemical Compositions

Analytical Measurements of Chemical Compositions

A great many chemical composition measurements may be made indirectly by means of electricity, if those…


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Introduction to Protective Relaying

Introduction to Protective Relaying

Circuit breakers used in residential, commercial, and light industrial service are self-tripping devices: they…


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Instrument and Process Equipment Symbols

Instrument and Process Equipment Symbols

This section shows some of the many instrument symbols found in different types of technical diagrams used to…


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Basics of pH Measurement in Industrial Control

Basics of pH Measurement in Industrial Control

Hydrogen ion activity in aqueous (water-solvent) solutions is a very important parameter for a wide variety of…


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Process and Instrument Diagrams

Process and Instrument Diagrams

The next level of detail is the Process and Instrument Diagram, or P&ID. Here, we see a “zooming…


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P, I, and D Responses Graphed

P, I, and D Responses Graphed

Visualizing the actions of P, I, and D tuning parameters using graphs is extremely useful in predicting the…


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Bi-metal Temperature Sensors

Bi-metal Temperature Sensors

Solids tend to expand when heated. The amount that a solid sample will expand with increased temperature…


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Laminar Flowmeters

Laminar Flowmeters

A unique form of differential pressure-based flow measurement deserves its own section in this flow…


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Control Valve Sizing

Control Valve Sizing

When control valves operate between fully open and fully shut, they serve much the same purpose in process…


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LRV and URV Settings, Digital Trim (Digital Transmitters)

LRV and URV Settings, Digital Trim (Digital Transmitters)

The advent of “smart” field instruments containing microprocessors has been a great advance for…


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True Mass Flowmeters

True Mass Flowmeters

Many traditional flowmeter technologies respond to the volumetric flow rate of the moving fluid.…


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Level Gauges (Sightglasses)

Level Gauges (Sightglasses)

Level gauges are perhaps the simplest indicating instrument for liquid level in a vessel. They are often found…


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Concepts and Laws of Probability

Concepts and Laws of Probability

While the term “probability” may evoke images of imprecision, probability is in fact an exact…


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P, I, and D Responses Graphed

P, I, and D Responses Graphed

Visualizing the actions of P, I, and D tuning parameters using graphs is extremely useful in predicting the…


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Open-ended, Shorted, and Properly Terminated Transmission Lines

Open-ended, Shorted, and Properly Terminated Transmission Lines

Many years ago, when I was first learning about electricity, I happened to discover a length of coaxial…


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Basics of pH Measurement in Industrial Control

Basics of pH Measurement in Industrial Control

Hydrogen ion activity in aqueous (water-solvent) solutions is a very important parameter for a wide variety of…


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Positive Displacement Flowmeters

Positive Displacement Flowmeters

A positive displacement flowmeter is a cyclic mechanism built to pass a fixed volume of fluid through with…


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Understanding How Three-phase Electric Motors Work

Understanding How Three-phase Electric Motors Work

The key to understanding how three-phase electric motors work is to have an accurate mental picture of the…


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Instruction List (IL) Programming

Instruction List (IL) Programming

(Will be addressed in future versions of this book)


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FOUNDATION Fieldbus H1 Protocol Physical Layer

FOUNDATION Fieldbus H1 Protocol Physical Layer

Layer 1 of the OSI Reference Model is where we define the “physical” elements of a digital data…


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Pneumatic Actuator Response

Pneumatic Actuator Response

A limitation inherent to pneumatic valve actuators is the amount of air flow required to or from the actuator…


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Flow Measurement in Open Channels

Flow Measurement in Open Channels

Measuring the flow rate of liquid through an open channel is not unlike measuring the flow rate of a liquid…


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Pressure Switches

Pressure Switches

A pressure switch is one that detects the presence of fluid pressure. Pressure switches often use diaphragms…


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Proper Care and Feeding of Pneumatic Instruments

Proper Care and Feeding of Pneumatic Instruments

Perhaps the most important rule to obey when using pneumatic instruments is to maintain clean and dry…


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Material Volume Measurement

Material Volume Measurement

A variety of technologies exist to measure the quantity of stored material in a vessel. For liquid…


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Understanding Electrical Power Grids

Understanding Electrical Power Grids

The term “grid” refers to the conductors and equipment interconnecting power sources to power…


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Periodic Table of the Ions

Periodic Table of the Ions


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Ratio Control

Ratio Control

Most people reading this book have likely had the experience of adjusting water temperature using two hand…


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Understanding Area, Volume and Common Geometry

Understanding Area, Volume and Common Geometry

Area refers to the size of two-dimensional surface. Volume refers to the size of a three-dimensional space. To…


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What is Hydrostatic Pressure?

What is Hydrostatic Pressure?

A vertical column of fluid generates a pressure at the bottom of the column owing to the action of gravity on…


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Feedforward Control

Feedforward Control

“Feedforward” is a rather under-used control strategy capable of managing a great many types of…


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Glossary of Cyber-security Terms

Glossary of Cyber-security Terms

Cyber-security seems to have its own vocabulary, ranging from unwieldy technical acronyms to slang terms…


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