One of the great benefits of digital technology is the ability to communicate vast amounts of information over…
Textbook
Light has long been used as a long-range signaling medium. While communication by light through open air is…
Textbook
pH is the measurement of the hydrogen ion activity in a liquid solution. It is one of the most common forms of…
Textbook
Developed by the Modicon company (the original manufacturer of the Programmable Logic Controller, or PLC) in…
Textbook
It is possible to convey electrical power and communicate analog information over the same two wires using 4…
Textbook
Some of the simplest types of digital communication networks found in industry are defined by the EIA…
Textbook
RTDs are completely passive sensing elements, requiring the application of an externally-sourced electric…
Textbook
I remember first learning about the world-wide Internet, and wondering what it actually looked like. The first…
Textbook
Some self-powered (4-wire) analog electronic transmitters are designed to behave as electrical loads rather…
Textbook
Layer 1 of the OSI Reference Model is where we define the “physical” elements of a digital data…
Textbook
DC electric current signals may also be used to communicate process measurement information from transmitters…
Textbook
Programmable logic controllers are essentially nothing more than special-purpose, industrial computers. As…
Textbook
Labwork is an essential part of any science-based curriculum. Here, much improvement may be made over the…
Textbook
The vast majority of PID controllers in service today are digital in nature. Microprocessors executing PID…
Textbook
An engineer named Bob Metcalfe conceived the idea of Ethernet in 1973, while working for the Xerox research…
Textbook
Learning PLC programming is a very important skill. If your job involves programming, then you will likely…
Textbook
A design-based fortification is one rooted in technical details of system architecture and functionality. Some…
Textbook
There is much to be said for neatness of assembly in electrical signal wiring. Even though the electrons…
Textbook
All substances are comprised of various elements in various combinations and proportions. Elements may thus be…
Textbook
The following animation shows how a radio-energy pulse travels down and then up the waveguide of a guided-wave…
Textbook
The reason why a pneumatic control valve’s stem position corresponds linearly to the amount of air…
Textbook
Perhaps the simplest form of solid or liquid level measurement is with a float: a device that rides on the…
Textbook
While 50 and 51 (instantaneous and time overcurrent) relay functions monitor line current magnitude and guard…
Textbook
Valve actuators provide force to move control valve trim. For precise positioning of a control valve, there…
Textbook
Much of our knowledge about atomic structure comes from experimental data relating the interaction between…
Textbook
In order to provide an interface between the internal (digital) world of a computer and the external (analog)…
Textbook
Every flow-measuring instrument exploits a physical principle to measure the flow rate of fluid stream.…
Textbook
The digital multimeter (DMM) is quite possibly the most useful tool in the instrument technician’s…
Textbook
Once while working as an instrument technician in an aluminum foundry, a mechanic asked me what it was that I…
Textbook
A temperature switch is one detecting the temperature of some substance. Temperature switches often use…
Textbook
An electromechanical relay is an electrical switch actuated by an electromagnet coil. As switching devices,…
Textbook
(Will be addressed in future versions of this book)
Textbook
Perhaps the most important rule of controller tuning is to know the process before attempting to adjust the…
Textbook
A design-based fortification is one rooted in technical details of system architecture and functionality. Some…
Textbook
Most people reading this book have likely had the experience of adjusting water temperature using two hand…
Textbook
An important legacy technology for all kinds of continuous measurement is the self-balancing system. A…
Textbook
The disadvantages of pneumatic instruments are painfully evident to anyone familiar with both pneumatic and…
Textbook
Classical mechanics (often called Newtonian mechanics in honor of Isaac Newton) deal with forces and motions…
Textbook
Displacer level instruments exploit Archimedes’ Principle to detect liquid level by continuously…
Textbook
It is often useful to express the amplitude of an alternating quantity such as voltage or current in terms…
Textbook
Sometimes we encounter a diversity of instrument signal standards in one control system. Such is the case with…
Textbook
Circuit breakers used in residential, commercial, and light industrial service are self-tripping devices: they…
Textbook
A variety of problem-solving techniques have been presented for students over the years which are all helpful…
Textbook
In order for any PID controller to be practical, it must be able to do more than just implement the PID…
Textbook
As we have seen, the concept of integration is finding the accumulation of one variable multiplied by another…
Textbook
Multiple accessories exist for pressure-sensing devices to function optimally in challenging process…
Textbook
This animation shows the basic operation of a gas chromatograph, showing the separation of different molecular…
Textbook
In the United States, the most common language used to program PLCs is Ladder Diagram (LD), also known as…
Textbook
Imagine a major marathon race, where hundreds of runners gather in one place to compete. When the starting gun…
Textbook
An important design parameter of a control valve is the position it will “fail” to if it loses…
Textbook
RTDs are completely passive sensing elements, requiring the application of an externally-sourced electric…
Textbook
In this section I will show screenshots from a process loop simulation program illustrating the effectiveness…
Textbook
A unique form of differential pressure-based flow measurement deserves its own section in this flow…
Textbook
Process analyzers measure the concentration of specific substances for the purpose of measuring and/or…
Textbook
To summarize some of the key points and concepts for teaching: Do not waste class time transmitting facts to…
Textbook
Learning how to tune PID controllers is a skill born of much practice. Regardless of how thoroughly you may…
Textbook
Some analyzers measure the composition of a process stream by directly immersing the sensing element in that…
Textbook
A form of protection against faults on long-distance power lines is called distance relaying, so named because…
Textbook