A great many precision instruments use the principle of balance to measure some quantity. Perhaps the simplest…
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Calculus has a reputation for being difficult to learn, and with good reason. The traditional approach to…
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Capacitors store energy in electric fields, proportional to the square of voltage. Inductors store energy in…
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An extremely important topic in engineering is that of transfer functions. Simply defined, a transfer function…
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Regulating the electric power sent to an electric motor is a task performed by high-speed switching…
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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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Every programmable logic controller must have some means of receiving and interpreting signals from real-world…
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Phasors are to AC circuit quantities as polarity is to DC circuit quantities: a way to express the…
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Given the ability of pressurized fluids to transmit force over long distances, it is not surprising that many…
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Any power grid large enough to meet the demand of an entire nation must have multiple generators drawing from…
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I remember first learning about the world-wide Internet, and wondering what it actually looked like. The first…
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Some of the simplest types of digital communication networks found in industry are defined by the EIA…
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One of the most common, and most useful, pressure measuring instruments in industry is the differential…
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The following photograph shows a large air blower in a wastewater treatment facility equipped with a…
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pH is the measurement of the hydrogen ion activity in a liquid solution. It is one of the most common forms of…
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In the United States, the most common language used to program PLCs is Ladder Diagram (LD), also known as…
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A variety of technologies exist to measure the quantity of stored material in a vessel. For liquid…
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Feedback Control System Components Before we begin our discussion on process control, we must define a few key…
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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 term “grid” refers to the conductors and equipment interconnecting power sources to power…
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A pressure switch is one detecting the presence of fluid pressure. Pressure switches often use diaphragms or…
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So far we have just looked at instruments that sense, control, and influence process variables. Transmitters,…
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A pneumatic controller receives a process variable (PV) signal as a variable air pressure, compares that…
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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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Much of our knowledge about atomic structure comes from experimental data relating the interaction between…
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Imagine a major marathon race, where hundreds of runners gather in one place to compete. When the starting gun…
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The electrical conductivity of liquids is an important analytical measurement in many industrial processes.…
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The efficient identification and correction of instrument calibration errors is an important function for…
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While 50 and 51 (instantaneous and time overcurrent) relay functions monitor line current magnitude and guard…
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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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In addition to directly performing logic functions, electromechanical relays may also be used as interposing…
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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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A bridge circuit is basically a pair of voltage dividers where the circuit output is taken as the difference…
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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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As described earlier in this chapter, calibration refers to the adjustment of an instrument so its output…
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Multiple accessories exist for pressure-sensing devices to function optimally in challenging process…
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Virtually any mass above absolute zero temperature emits electromagnetic radiation (photons, or light) as a…
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The term “grid” refers to the conductors and equipment interconnecting power sources to power…
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An extremely important topic in engineering is that of transfer functions. Simply defined, a transfer function…
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Any power grid large enough to meet the demand of an entire nation must have multiple generators drawing from…
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Phasors are to AC circuit quantities as polarity is to DC circuit quantities: a way to express the…
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For better or worse, there are no fewer than three different forms of PID equations implemented in modern PID…
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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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As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, instrumentation safety may be broadly divided into two…
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Those familiar with industrial instrumentation will find much within the electric power industry remarkably…
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The efficient identification and correction of instrument calibration errors is an important function for…
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Valves can experience a number of problems, most of them either preventable or repairable. These problems can…
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Given the ability of pressurized fluids to transmit force over long distances, it is not surprising that many…
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A sliding-stem valve body is one where the moving parts slide with a linear motion. Some examples of…
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Process analyzers measure the concentration of specific substances for the purpose of measuring and/or…
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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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Thermodynamics is the study of heat, temperature, and their related effects in physical systems. As a subject,…
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Sometimes we encounter a diversity of instrument signal standards in one control system. Such is the case with…
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In addition to Ohm’s Law, we have a set of rules describing how voltages, currents, and resistances…
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Converting between disparate units of measurement is the bane of many science students. The problem is worse…
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A limit switch detects the physical motion of an object by direct contact with that object. An example of a…
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One very convenient feature of waves is that their properties are universal. Waves of water in the ocean,…
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Every programmable logic controller must have some means of receiving and interpreting signals from real-world…
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These fortifications focus on human behavior rather than system design or component selection. In some ways…
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Earlier in this chapter you were shown a model of a nitrogen atom with a dense nucleus (comprised of protons…
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