MECH 373

Instrumentation and Measurements

Lecture 19

Measurement of Solid-Mechanical
Quantities (Chapter 8)
• Measuring Strain • Measuring Accepleration and Vibaration
• Measuring Displacement • Measuring Force
• Measuring Linear Velocity

Lecture 19 Lecture Notes on MECH 373 – Instrumentation and Measurements 1

 Measuring Strain (Strain Gages)
• If the temperature is held constant, the change in resistivity is proportional to the
strain.
• The strain gage factor is approximately constant, although it is sensitive to the
temperature change.
• In summary, we have following equations:

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 Measurement Systems

Displacement is one of the fundamental measurements in engineering, and the

base for velocity, acceleration, strain & force measurements.
The displacement can be either translational (linear) or rotational.
Many displacement sensors are commercially available.
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 Measuring Displacement
• Potentiometers are very common devices used to measure displacement. A
linear potentiometer is used for linear measurements and an angular
potentiometer is used for angular measurements.
• The linear potentiometer is a device in which the resistance varies as a function
of the position of a slider, shown below:

• With the supply voltage (Vs), the output voltage (Vo) will vary between zero
and the supply voltage.
• For linear potentiometer, the output is a simple linear function of the slider
position. That is x
Vo  Vs
L
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 Measuring Displacement

• It should be noted that the device measuring Vo must have a high impedance
to maintain a linear response and to avoid loading error.
• Linear potentiometers can be used to measure displacements as small as 0.1 to
0.2 in. (2.5 to 5 mm)Lecture
Lecture 19
up Notes
to displacements of more than 1 ft.
on MECH 373 – Instrumentation and Measurements
Lecture 19 5
 Measuring Displacement
• Angular potentiometers can measure angular displacements in multiple
rotations.
• Angular potentiometers are used in common devices such as radios and
televisions as volume and tone controls.
• Potentiometers do have limitations.
• Because of sliding contact, they are subject to wear.
• Furthermore, the output tends to be somewhat electrically noisy since the
slider-resistor contact point has some resistance, and this can affect the output
in a somewhat random manner.
• This effect often becomes worse with the age of the device due to
contamination of the contact surface.
• The wire-wound potentiometers display output as the slider contacts
successive turns of the wire winding.
• Conductive plastic potentiometers were developed to eliminate this stepwise
output and now widely used in mechatronic systems.
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 Measuring Linear Velocity
Linear Velocity Transducer
• The linear velocity transducer (LVT) is an inductive device suitable for
measuring the velocity of components in machines.
• As shown below, the velocity is measured by driving a permanent magnet
core past a fixed coil.

• As the north pole of the magnet approaches the coil, the magnetic flux cuts
across the coils and generate a voltage that is proportional to the velocity.
• However, the number of flux lines cutting the coil varies with position, and
hence, the output voltage is a function of both velocity and position.
• When the magnet is centered with respect to the coil, the flux lines due to the
negative pole also induce voltage in the coil of opposite polarity to that
induced by the north pole, and the net output is zero.
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 Measuring Linear Velocity
• To avoid this problem, two coils are used as shown below:

• The south pole induces a voltage primarily in winding 1 and the north pole
induces a voltage primarily in winding 2.
• By connecting the coils with opposing polarity, a voltage proportional to
velocity is generated and this voltage is relatively independent of position over
a limited range.
• For a typical LVT 7 in. long, the output is proportional to the velocity and
independent of position for displacements that are within ±1 in. of the centered
position.
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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
• The measurement of acceleration is required in a variety of purposes, ranging
from machine design to guidance systems.
• A wide variety of transducers and measurement techniques exists for
acceleration and vibration measurements, each associated with a particular
application.
• Displacement, velocity and acceleration measurements are also referred to as
shock or vibration measurements, depending on the waveform of the forcing
function that causes the acceleration. Acceleration is a derivative of velocity,
second derivative of displacement.
• A forcing function that is periodic in nature generally results in acceleration
that are analyzed as vibration.

Piezoelectric Accelerometers
• Certain materials when deformed are capable of generating an electric
charge. For example, quartz crystal.
• This property of generating an electric charge when deformed makes
piezoelectric materials useful sensors in several common types of transducers.
• The following figure shows a piezoelectric material under compression.
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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration

• The faces have been coated with a conducting material such as silver.
• When the load is applied, electrons move to one of the conducting faces and
away from the other, which results in a charge being stored by the inherent
capacitance of the piezoelectric material itself.
• The arrangement shown in the above figure is called longitudinal effect. For
this arrangement, the charge generated is given by
Q = F×d
where, F is the applied force and d is the piezoelectric coefficient of the material.
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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
• The piezoelectric coefficient, d, depends on the piezoelectric material and its
crystal orientation relative to the force, F.
• For a typical quartz element, d has a value of 2.3×10^(-12) C/N.
• The above equation shows that the charge is proportional to the applied force
which can also be viewed as being proportional to the displacement.
• The piezoelectric element is slightly flexible, and the imposition of a force
produces a small, proportional displacement.
• Another configuration of the piezoelectric sensor is called transverse effect
which is shown below:
• The charge generated in this configuration is
given by
b
Q  F d 
a
• If the ratio of the dimensions, b/a, is greater
than one (the usual case), the transverse effect
produces a greater charge than the longitudinal
effect.
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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration

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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
• With either loading, the charge is proportional to the applied force.
• This charge results in a voltage. However, this voltage depends not only on the
capacitance of the piezoelectric element but also on the capacitances of the lead
wires and the signal-conditioner input.
• Since the piezoelectric element generates a charge when loaded, this charge
must be sensed in a manner that does not dissipate the charge.
• This is normally performed with a device called a charge amplifier.
• A typical configuration of the charge amplifier is shown below:

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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
• In this circuit, the resistance R1 is set very high, so the circuit draws very low
current and produces a voltage output that is proportional to the charge.
• It should be noted that the capacitance of the lead wire from the transducer to
the amplifier is important and affects calibration.
• Normally the charged amplifier is located close to the transducer.
• The charge amplifiers are normally supplied by the manufacturer of the
piezoelectric transducer, and in some cases, the amplifier is incorporated into the
body of the transducer.
• Although piezoelectric sensors are capable of measuring quasi-static forces,
they cannot measure completely static forces since the charge decays with time.
• Consequently, in many common applications, transducers using piezoelectric
sensors have a lower limit on frequency response and are not suitable for steady
or quasi-steady measurands.
• The primary advantage of piezoelectric sensors is their higher ability to respond
to high-frequency measurands.
• Most piezoelectric materials are very stiff and have a high modulus of
elasticity. This leads to high natural frequencies of piezoelectric transducers.
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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
Accelerometers using Piezoelectric Sensing Elements
• An accelerometer using a piezoelectric material as the sensing element is
shown below:

• It consists of a housing, a mass called the seismic mass, and a piezoelectric

sensing element, which typically uses the longitudinal piezoelectric effect.
• An initial force between the mass and sensor is obtained with a preloading
spring sleeve.
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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
• As the housing for the accelerometer is subject to an acceleration, the force
exerted by the mass on the quartz crystal is altered.
• This generates a charge on the crystal, which can be sensed with a charge
amplifier.
• Piezoelectric accelerometers are available in many ranges up to ±1000g, where
g is the acceleration due to gravity.
• Quartz crystal accelerometers can have very high values of natural frequency
up to 125 kHz.
• This allows them to measure frequencies as high as 25 kHz.

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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
Vibrometer
• An instrument that is used to measure the ground motion in earthquakes and
sometimes to measure vibration in machines is called the vibrometer.

• Although the basic components are the same as the piezoelectric or strain-gage
accelerometers, the mode of operation is different.
• In the vibrometer, the spring is quite soft and as the housing moves, the mass
remains approximately stationary. The relative motion, y, is large and sensed with a
potentiometer.
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 Measuring Acceleration and Vibration
• These devices are used to measure vibrations with frequencies that are high
relative to the natural frequency of the spring-mass system, which is often less than
1 Hz.
• The vibrometer effectively measures the displacement of the base rather than the
acceleration.
• Thus, these devices are most sensitive to vibrations with moderate frequencies
and fairly large displacement amplitudes.
• High frequency vibrations usually have small values of displacement amplitude
and are better measured with accelerometers.

Lecture 19 Lecture Notes on MECH 373 – Instrumentation and Measurements 18

 Measuring Force
Load Cell
• “Load cell” is a term used to describe a transducer that generates a voltage signal as a
result of an applied force, usually along a particular direction.
• Virtually any simple metal structure deforms when subjected to a force, and as long as
the resulting stresses are below the material yield stress, the deflection (δ) and resulting
strain (ε) are linear functions of the applied force:
F  C1
F  C2 
where C1 and C2 are constants determined from analysis or calibration.
• The most common force-measuring devices are strain-gage load cells. They are often
constructed of a metal and have a shape such that the range of forces to be measured results
in a measurable output voltage over the desired operating range.
• Figure 8.34(a) shows a cantilever beam instrumented with four strain gages, two on the top
and two on the bottom, to measure normal or bending stresses. These four gages form the
Wheatstone bridge and offer effective temperature compensation. The output of the bridge is
four times the output of an individual gage.

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 Measuring Force

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 Measuring Force
• Figure 8.34(b) shows a hollow-cylinder load cell. It also uses four strain gages and is also
temperature compensated. As the cylinder is compressed, it becomes slightly shorter, while
the diameter becomes slightly larger. As a result, two gages measure the axial compression.
The other two, mounted transversely, measure the tensile diametral strain. Since the
transverse strain is only Poisson's ratio times the axial strain, the output is less than four
times the output of a single axial strain gage. For a Poisson's ratio of 0.3, the output will be
about 2.6 times the output of a single axial strain gage.
• Due to their simple design, any range can be readily manufactured. Commercial load cells
are available with ranges from ounces up to several hundred thousand puns.
• Unlike accelerometers, it is not useful to specify the frequency response of commercial
load cells because the mass and flexibility of the instrumented system control the dynamic
response.
• Furthermore, an installed load cell will add flexibility to the system and also affect the
dynamic response.
• If the flexibility of strain-gage load cells is too high, load cells using piezoelectric sensors,
which are much stiffer, are commercially available.

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 Measurement Systems

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