Instrumentation for Engineers

The science (or even the art!) of instrumentation is of fundamental import ance to engineers, scientists and medical workers. Instruments are the eyes and ears of the technologist. (His nose is reserved for detecting the effects of excess current. ) Without sensors and their associated signal processing systems there would be no modern transport, no National Grid distributing electricity, and anyone unlucky enough to fall ill would be offered only the most primitive medical treatment. The progress that has been made in almost all areas of technology can be seen in terms of the rate at which the necessary instrumentation has been developed. For example, in recent years many improvements have been made to the performance of the internal combus tion engine. More and more power has been squeezed out of smaller and more economic engines. One of the reasons is that in the last few years sensors have been developed which allow investigations to be made of the way in which the flame front spreads inside a cylinder after ignition. This work has led to a redesign of the geometry of the inlet valves and the piston, and more efficient engines are the result. The process of instrumentation is often considered solely in terms of the sensors used and their associated electronics. However, there are two steps involved in making any measurement. These are, first, getting the data, which is where sensors and electronics are used, and second, analysing it.

Klappentext

The science (or even the art!) of instrumentation is of fundamental import­ ance to engineers, scientists and medical workers. Instruments are the eyes and ears of the technologist. (His nose is reserved for detecting the effects of excess current. ) Without sensors and their associated signal processing systems there would be no modern transport, no National Grid distributing electricity, and anyone unlucky enough to fall ill would be offered only the most primitive medical treatment. The progress that has been made in almost all areas of technology can be seen in terms of the rate at which the necessary instrumentation has been developed. For example, in recent years many improvements have been made to the performance of the internal combus­ tion engine. More and more power has been squeezed out of smaller and more economic engines. One of the reasons is that in the last few years sensors have been developed which allow investigations to be made of the way in which the flame front spreads inside a cylinder after ignition. This work has led to a redesign of the geometry of the inlet valves and the piston, and more efficient engines are the result. The process of instrumentation is often considered solely in terms of the sensors used and their associated electronics. However, there are two steps involved in making any measurement. These are, first, getting the data, which is where sensors and electronics are used, and second, analysing it.

Inhalt
1 The Performance of Instrumentation Systems.- Generalised instrumentation design.- The performance of instrumentation systems.- Error analysis.- 2 Sensors and Transducers.- Displacement sensing.- Velocity sensing.- Acceleration sensing.- Strain measurement.- Flow sensors.- Temperature sensors.- Optical sensors.- Acoustic sensors.- Hall effect sensors.- 3 Signal Conditioning.- Bridge circuits.- Operational amplifier signal conditioning circuits.- Analysing op-amp circuits.- 4 Analogue Filters.- Filter order.- Filter class.- Operational-amplifier filters.- Special-purpose filter devices.- 5 Signal Conversion.- Digital and analogue conversion fundamentals.- Digital-to-analogue converters.- Frequency-to-voltage converters.- Sample-and-hold devices.- Analogue-to-digital converters.- Analogue multiplexers.- Example design.- 6 Digital Circuits and Microprocessor Interfacing.- Digital device families.- Combinational logic, gates and Boolean algebra.- Sequential logic circuits.- Digital systems interfacing.- Number codes.- Microprocessors.- Example interface designs.- Communication standards.- 7 Frequency Domain Analysis.- The modal domain.- Waterfall diagrams.- Vector response diagrams.- Fourier analysis.- Fourier series.- The Fourier Transform.- 8 Practical Spectrum Analysis.- Analogue analysers.- Digital analysers.- The Fast Fourier Transform.- Aliasing and Shannon's Sampling Theorem.- Windowing.- Choice of window.- Glossary of FFT analyser terminology.- 9 Correlation and Spectral Analysis.- Signal classification.- Autocorrelation.- Interpreting autocorrelation diagrams.- Cross-correlation.- Interpreting cross-correlation functions.- Bibliography and Further Reading.