A fundamental principle in instrumentation system troubleshooting is that every instrument has at least one…
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A completely different way of measuring liquid level in vessels is to bounce a traveling wave off the surface…
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The simplest form of 4-20 mA current loop is the type used to represent the output of a process controller,…
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The digital multimeter (DMM) is quite possibly the most useful tool in the instrument technician’s…
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As we have seen, the concept of integration is finding the accumulation of one variable multiplied by another…
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“Polyphase” means “many phases,” describing a form of AC electrical system where…
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RTDs are completely passive sensing elements, requiring the application of an externally-sourced electric…
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Much of our knowledge about atomic structure comes from experimental data relating the interaction between…
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It is possible to convey electrical power and communicate analog information over the same two wires using 4…
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(Will be addressed in future versions of this book)
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Recall that an exothermic chemical reaction is one that releases a net sum of energy, as opposed to an…
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A damper (otherwise known as a louvre) is a multi-element flow control device generally used to throttle large…
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Learning PLC programming is a very important skill. If your job involves programming, then you will likely…
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Measuring the flow rate of liquid through an open channel is not unlike measuring the flow rate of a liquid…
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A wise PLC programmer once told me that the first thing any aspiring programmer should learn about the PLC…
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An interesting parallel to the “unity fraction” unit conversion technique is something referred to…
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A limitation inherent to pneumatic valve actuators is the amount of air flow required to or from the actuator…
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This section shows some of the many instrument symbols found in different types of technical diagrams used to…
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Impedance in a series circuit is the orthogonal sum of resistance and reactance: \[Z = \sqrt{R^2 + (X_L -…
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A pneumatic controller receives a process variable (PV) signal as a variable air pressure, compares that…
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Capacitive level instruments measure electrical capacitance of a conductive rod inserted vertically into a…
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A whole class of problem-solving techniques focuses on altering the given problem into a simpler form that is…
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An important design parameter of a control valve is the position it will “fail” to if it loses…
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Pipe is a hollow structure designed to provide an enclosed pathway for fluids to flow, usually manufactured…
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By definition, a source is a device delivering energy into a system, while a load is a device extracting…
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A form of protection against faults on long-distance power lines is called distance relaying, so named because…
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A fundamental limitation of proportional control has to do with its response to changes in setpoint and…
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“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps…
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Stoichiometry is the accounting of atoms before and after a chemical reaction. It is an expression of the Law…
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A very simple device used to measure pressure is the manometer: a fluid-filled tube where an applied gas…
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The following animation shows how a radio-energy pulse travels down and then up the waveguide of a guided-wave…
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A laser is a light source emitting waves of light that not only share the exact same frequency (color)…
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A much simpler alternative to continuous vibration sensors (displacement or acceleration) and monitoring…
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“Radio” systems use electromagnetic fields to communicate information over long distances through…
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Many years ago, when I was first learning about electricity, I happened to discover a length of coaxial…
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The efficient identification and correction of instrument calibration errors is an important function for…
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Any conductor possesses a characteristic called inductance: the ability to store energy in the form of a…
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Temperature measurement devices may be classified into two broad types: contact and non-contact. Contact-type…
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A completely different way of measuring liquid level in vessels is to bounce a traveling wave off the surface…
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In reliability engineering, it is important to be able to quantity the reliability (or conversely, the…
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Process analyzers measure the concentration of specific substances for the purpose of measuring and/or…
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The final element of PID control is the “D” term, which stands for derivative. This is a calculus…
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A technological advance introduced in the late 1980’s was HART, an acronym standing for Highway…
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Control valves are supposed to deliver reliable, repeatable control of process fluid flow rate over a wide…
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As described earlier in this chapter, calibration refers to the adjustment of an instrument so its output…
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In this section I will show screenshots from a process loop simulation program illustrating the effectiveness…
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