Due to their outstanding sensitivity, Wheatstone bridge circuits are very advantageous for the measurement of resistance.

The Wheatstone bridge is well suited also for the measurement of small changes of a resistance and, therefore, is also suitable to measure the resistance change in a strain gauge. It is commonly known that the strain gauge transforms strain applied to it into a proportional change of resistance. It is widely used across industry even today. The Wheatstone bridge is used to measure electrical resistance with a very high precision- precision is much higher than attainable with voltmeters, ammeters and ohmmeters. One application of the precision resistance measurement is an electronic thermometer which makes use of resistance variation with temperature. In what way does the variable ratio-arm improve the usefulness of the bridge? The experiment can be repeated for different values of R1 and R2 without disconnecting the circuit. Thus, different values of RS will be obtained and the values of RX1 can be calculated. A more accurate value of RX1 will be obtained by calculating and an average of all the values.

the wheatstone bridge is not applicable for high resistances

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