All masses require force to accelerate (we can also think of this in terms of the mass generating a reaction…
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Fieldbus devices require far more attention in their initial setup and commissioning than their analog…
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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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A great many chemical composition measurements may be made indirectly by means of electricity, if those…
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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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A positive displacement flowmeter is a cyclic mechanism built to pass a fixed volume of fluid through with…
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A level switch is one detecting the level of liquid or solid (granules or powder) in a vessel. Level switches…
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In November of 2007 a new computer virus was submitted to a virus scanning service. The purpose of this new…
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Volumes could be written about poor diagnostic technique. The following mistakes are not intended to comprise…
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The majority of flowmeter technologies operate on the principle of interpreting fluid flow based on the…
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“Radio” systems use electromagnetic fields to communicate information over long distances through…
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A different strategy for controlling the flow of fluid is to insert a rotary element into the flow path.…
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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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Any physical location in an industrial facility harboring the potential of explosion due to the presence of…
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A fluid is any substance having the ability to flow: to freely change shape and move under the influence of a…
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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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Flow, by definition, is the passage of material from one location to another over time. So far this chapter…
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The two “process variables” we rely on most heavily in the field of electrical measurement and…
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Light has long been used as a long-range signaling medium. While communication by light through open air is…
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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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Capacitors store energy in electric fields, proportional to the square of voltage. Inductors store energy in…
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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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Electrical Resistance Resistance (\(R\)) is the dissipative opposition to an electric current, analogous to…
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Some analyzers measure the composition of a process stream by directly immersing the sensing element in that…
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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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Disconnect Switches Disconnects are switches designed to isolate sections of a power system in case of damage…
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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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The electrical conductivity of liquids is an important analytical measurement in many industrial processes.…
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The digital multimeter (DMM) is quite possibly the most useful tool in the instrument technician’s…
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The fundamental principle of electromagnetism is that an electric current will create a magnetic field at…
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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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The term “grid” refers to the conductors and equipment interconnecting power sources to power…
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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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Circuit breakers used in residential, commercial, and light industrial service are self-tripping devices: they…
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Instrument technicians should not have to concern themselves over the programming details internal to digital…
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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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Imagine a major marathon race, where hundreds of runners gather in one place to compete. When the starting gun…
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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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Multiple accessories exist for pressure-sensing devices to function optimally in challenging process…
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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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Regulating the electric power sent to an electric motor is a task performed by high-speed switching…
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Steam boilers are very common in industry, principally because steam power is so useful. Common uses for steam…
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Perhaps the most important rule of controller tuning is to know the process before attempting to adjust the…
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Every programmable logic controller must have some means of receiving and interpreting signals from real-world…
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The advent of “smart” field instruments containing microprocessors has been a great advance for…
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Developed by the Modicon company (the original manufacturer of the Programmable Logic Controller, or PLC) in…
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To show a practical process example, let’s examine three diagrams for a compressor control system,…
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Coy, John J. et. al. (December 2012) Sampled graphic illustrations from his NASA Reference Publication…
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The dispersion of visible light into its constituent colors goes all the way back to the 17th century with…
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An interesting parallel to the “unity fraction” unit conversion technique is something referred to…
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A much simpler alternative to continuous vibration sensors (displacement or acceleration) and monitoring…
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Temperature measurement devices may be classified into two broad types: contact and non-contact. Contact-type…
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PID control can be a confusing concept to understand. Here, a brief summary of each term within PID (P. I, and…
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Two extremely important principles in electric circuits were codified by Gustav Robert Kirchhoff in the year…
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While 50 and 51 (instantaneous and time overcurrent) relay functions monitor line current magnitude and guard…
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The simple PLC ladder diagram (LD) commands consist of contacts and coils, arranged in sequences that mimic…
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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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There are several different methods useful for causing an AC induction motor to brake, or slow down: DC…
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The following animation shows the calculus concepts of differentiation and integration (with respect to time)…
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Feedback obtained from industrial users of FF reveal a common pattern: Fieldbus is a powerful and reliable…
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