Any power grid large enough to meet the demand of an entire nation must have multiple generators drawing from…
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Like many other mathematical operations, the derivative and the integral perform inverse operations from each…
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A great many precision instruments use the principle of balance to measure some quantity. Perhaps the simplest…
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Filled-bulb systems exploit the principle of fluid expansion to measure temperature. If a fluid is enclosed in…
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A simple control system drawn in block diagram form looks like this: Information from the measuring device…
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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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A laser is a light source emitting waves of light that not only share the exact same frequency (color)…
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The vast majority of modern process transmitters (both analog and digital) come equipped with a feature known…
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A much simpler alternative to continuous vibration sensors (displacement or acceleration) and monitoring…
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Instrument technicians should not have to concern themselves over the programming details internal to digital…
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Every flow-measuring instrument exploits a physical principle to measure the flow rate of fluid stream.…
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Light is known to interact with matter in very specific ways, which may be exploited as a means of measuring…
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Solids tend to expand when heated. The amount that a solid sample will expand with increased temperature…
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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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Level gauges are perhaps the simplest indicating instrument for liquid level in a vessel. They are often found…
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In a manually-controlled process, a human operator directly actuates some form of final control element…
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A quantitative PID tuning procedure is a step-by-step approach leading directly to a set of numerical values…
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“Polyphase” means “many phases,” describing a form of AC electrical system where…
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Most people reading this book have likely had the experience of adjusting water temperature using two hand…
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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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Electrical Resistance Resistance (\(R\)) is the dissipative opposition to an electric current, analogous to…
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The efficient identification and correction of instrument calibration errors is an important function for…
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An engineer named Bob Metcalfe conceived the idea of Ethernet in 1973, while working for the Xerox research…
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The Law of Continuity for fluids states that the product of mass density (\(\rho\)), cross-sectional pipe area…
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“Polyphase” means “many phases,” describing a form of AC electrical system where…
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Perhaps the most confusing aspect of discrete sensors is the definition of a sensor’s normal status.…
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The two “process variables” we rely on most heavily in the field of electrical measurement and…
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While the term “probability” may evoke images of imprecision, probability is in fact an exact…
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“Radio” systems use electromagnetic fields to communicate information over long distances through…
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There are many process control applications in the industry where it is desirable to have multiple control…
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The reason why a pneumatic control valve’s stem position corresponds linearly to the amount of air…
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Although it seems each model of PLC has its own idiosyncratic standard for programming, there does exist an…
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A pneumatic controller receives a process variable (PV) signal as a variable air pressure, compares that…
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Instrument technicians should not have to concern themselves over the programming details internal to digital…
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Temperature measurement devices may be classified into two broad types: contact and non-contact. Contact-type…
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Imagine a liquid-level control system for a vessel, where the position of a level-sensing float sets the…
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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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An important type of “accessory” relay, especially for legacy electromechanical protective relays,…
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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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When control valves operate between fully open and fully shut, they serve much the same purpose in process…
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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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Some problem-solving techniques are unique to quantitative problems, involving mathematical calculations. In…
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The digital multimeter (DMM) is quite possibly the most useful tool in the instrument technician’s…
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Programmable logic controllers are essentially nothing more than special-purpose, industrial computers. As…
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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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There is much to be said for neatness of assembly in electrical signal wiring. Even though the electrons…
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Process analyzers measure the concentration of specific substances for the purpose of measuring and/or…
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An important type of “accessory” relay, especially for legacy electromechanical protective relays,…
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DC electric current signals may also be used to communicate process measurement information from transmitters…
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An important performance parameter for transmitter instruments is something often referred to as turndown or…
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In order for any PID controller to be practical, it must be able to do more than just implement the PID…
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As we have seen, feedforward control is a way to improve the stability of a feedback control system in the…
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Suppose we wished to measure the consumption of propane over time for a large propane storage tank supplying a…
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Area refers to the size of two-dimensional surface. Volume refers to the size of a three-dimensional space. To…
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Learning from reading printed text is a kind of problem-solving activity it is own right. The problem is how…
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Visualizing the actions of P, I, and D tuning parameters using graphs is extremely useful in predicting the…
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Classical mechanics (often called Newtonian mechanics in honor of Isaac Newton) deal with forces and motions…
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Binary patterns are not just able to represent numerical values. Given a standardized code, they may represent…
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An electromechanical relay is an electrical switch actuated by an electromagnet coil. As switching devices,…
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A simple control system drawn in block diagram form looks like this: Information from the measuring device…
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