Last lecture

Resistive sensing elements: Displacement sensors (potentiometers). Temperature sensors. Strain gauges. Deection bridges.

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Capacitive sensing elements. Inductive sensing elements. Reactive Deection bridges. Electromagnetic sensing elements. Thermoelectric sensing elements. Elastic sensing elements. Piezoelectric sensing elements.

Capacitive sensing elements

General principle
Consider two metal plates with areas A, separated by a distance d by some dielectric medium:

Capacitive sensing elements (contd...)

Examples
(A)
x d

(B)
x d

(C)
x E1 l E2

A d

(D)

(E)

The capacitance is then given by C= 0 A . d

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Capacitive sensing elements (contd...)

Examples (contd..)
(A) Variable displacement sensor: C= 0 A . d+x

Capacitive sensing elements (contd...)

Examples (contd..)
(D) Capacitive pressure sensor: C (1 2 )a2 P. = C 16Edt3 (E) Differential capacitive displacement sensor: C1 =
0 A d+x ,

(B) Variable area displacement sensor: C= 0 (A wx). d

C2 =

0 A dx

(C) Variable area displacement sensor: C= 0 w [2 l (2 1 )x] . d

Capacitive sensing elements (contd...)

Capacitive sensing elements are incorporated in a.c. deection bridge circuits or oscillator circuits. The sensor is not purely capacitive, but also has a resistance in parallel to represent losses in the dielectric. The quality of the dielectric is often expressed in terms of the loss tangent, tan = 1 CR

Inductive sensing elements

Variable inductance/reluctance sensors
First, some comments on magnetic circuits: In an electrical circuit, an electromotive force (e.m.f.) drives the current through the circuit
e.m.f.

= current resistance

In a magnetic circuit, the magnetomotive force (m.m.f.) which drives a ux through a magnetic circuit is:
m.m.f.

= ux reluctance = .

The reluctance limits the ux through the circuit, just as resistance limits current ow through an electric circuit.

Inductive sensing elements (contd...)

The ux in one turn is given by ni weber = The total ux is given by N = n = n2 i

Inductive sensing elements (contd...)

The reluctance of a magnetic circuit is given by: = l , 0 A

i n turns

where l is the total length of the ux path, is the relative permeability of the circuit material, 0 = 4 107 H/m is the permeability of free space, A is the cross-sectional area of the ux path.

The self-inductance is dened as n2 N = L= i

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Inductive sensing elements (contd...)

The inductive displacement sensor
Air gap

Inductive sensing elements (contd...)

The inductive displacement sensor (contd...
L core permeability mc radius r R air gap d

i n turns

armature permeability mA

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Inductive sensing elements (contd...)

The inductive displacement sensor (contd...
The total reluctance is
TOT

Reactive deection bridges

Typical capacitive bridge
R2 R3

CORE

GAP

ARMATURE

where
ETh
CORE

= = =

GAP

ARMATURE

R 0 C r2 2d 0 r2 R 0 A rt

C0

Ch

VS ~

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Reactive deection bridges

Typical inductive bridge
R R

Electromagnetic sensing elements

These elements are used for measuring linear and angular velocity and are based on Faradays law. This means that if a ux N linked to a conductor is changing with time, then the back electromotive force induced in the conductor is dN , E= dt i.e. proportional to the rate of change of the ux N .
L2

ETh

L1

VS ~

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Thermoelectric sensing elements

Thermoelectric or thermocouple sensing elements are commonly used for measuring temperature. The reason for this is that, if two metals A and B are joined together, there will be a difference in electrical potential across the junction. The potential depends on the types of metal and the temperature.

Thermoelectric sensing elements (contd...)

The junction potential can be described by a power series of the form
AB ET = a1 T + a2 T 2 + a3 T 3 + . . .

For the temperature difference between two junctions, the potential difference is then
AB AB 2 2 3 3 ET1 ET2 = a1 (T1 T2 ) + a2 (T1 T2 ) + a3 (T1 T2 ) + . . .

A T1
AB ET1

ET2 B ET1 - ET2

AB AB

AB

T2

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Elastic sensing elements

The general principle of elastic sensing elements is to convert a force to an output displacement, which is then described by a change in impedance. Elastic elements are often used to measure: torque = force distance pressure = force / area acceleration = force / mass. The dynamic behavior of these can often be described by second-order systems. See the text book for details.

Piezoelectric sensing elements

If a force is applied to a crystal, the atoms of the crystal are displaced from their normal positions, as x= 1 F, k

where k is the stiffness of the crystal. The dynamics can be described by a second-order system. In a piezoelectric crystal, the displacement results in a charge q = Kx = K F. k

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Piezoelectric sensing elements (contd...)

The piezoelectric effect is reversible, which means that if we apply a charge across a crystal, its dimensions will change accordingly. In order to measure the charge q the faces of the crystals are coated with metal electrodes, resulting in a capacitor, with capacitance CN = 0 A , t

Piezoelectric sensing elements (contd...)

The crystal can therefore be represented as a charge generator q in parallel with a capacitance CN , or as an equivalent Norton circuit with a current source iN in parallel with CN , where iN = dq dx =K . dt dt

In the Laplace domain this is (in transfer function form) N i (s) = Ks. x

where A is the area, t is the thickness the permittivity of the crystal, and 0 the permittivity of free space.

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Piezoelectric sensing elements (contd...)

If the crystal is connected to a resistive load using a capacitive cable, we have the following system:

Piezoelectric sensing elements (contd...)

The transfer function of the system, including the piezoelectric crystal, a capacitive cable, and a recorder is: G (s) = RL V L = , s (CN + Cc ) + 1 iN (s)

iN

CN

CC

RL

and relating it to the input force we get V L iN x V L (s) = iN x F F

Piezoelectric crystal

Capacitive Recorder cable

See the text book for the details of this derivation.

The piezoelectric crystal generates a current, proportional to the velocity of a force acting on its surface.
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Summary
Capacitive sensing elements. Inductive sensing elements. Reactive Deection bridges. Electromagnetic sensing elements. Thermoelectric sensing elements. Elastic sensing elements. Piezoelectric sensing elements. There are more details and some other examples of sensing elements in the book. Read this on your own. The elements presented at the lecture are only examples. Make sure you get the big picture.

Next lecture
The remainder of chapter 9. Have covered only deection bridges so far. Ideal ampliers are covered in other courses. Read up on this, and we can focus on limitations and errors.

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Recommended exercises
8.14 8.18 8.3, 8.4, 8.11.

Questions?

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