Sensor Performance and Reliability

Description

Technological advances abound in today’s world of instrumentation but much of it depends on conventional sensing technology that has been around for more than 50 years. Many of the instrumentation or sensor problems that exist today are similar to those which we have seen over the past years. Addressing these problems, this book describes several new instrumentation testing, diagnostics, and analysis techniques to verify the reliability, health, and performance of process instrumentation. This book helps you understand how to objectively assess the accuracy, response time, residual life and other characteristics of installed instrumentation and offers a practical means to identify the problems, assess their consequences, and help resolve some of the problems. It provides applications in a number of industries such as power, chemical, aerospace, and others. In-situ methods for sensor response time testing and calibration, on-line measurements to identify blockages and voids in pressure sensing lines, and other examples are covered. Content: Front Matter • List of Figures • Preface • Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Physical Characteristics of Industrial RTDs 3. Physical Characteristics of Thermocouples 4. Physical Characteristics of Pressure Sensors • 5. Performance Specification of Temperature and Pressure Sensors 6. Accuracy of Temperature Sensors 7. Pressure Transmitter Accuracy • 8. Calibration Traceability of Temperature and Pressure Sensors 9. Fundamentals of Dynamic Response 10. Laboratory Measurement of Response Time of Temperature Sensors • 11. Response Time Testing Methods for Pressure Transmitters 12. In-situ Response Time Testing of Temperature Sensors 13. In-situ Response Time Testing of Pressure Transmitters 14. Pressure Sensing Line Problems and Solutions 15. In-situ Methods to Verify the Calibration of Process Instruments 16. Aging Effects and Failure Potential of Process Instrumentation 17. In-situ Testing of Cables 18. In-situ Diagnostics of Temperature Sensors • 19. Applications • References Appendices Index