MECHANICAL

MEASUREMENTS

DYNAMIC
CHARACTERISTICS

Problem 1
An industrial mercury glass in thermometer is described by the equation

dh
h
dt

where, h is height of the mercury in capillary and T is the temp. at the thermometer bulb.
When the temp. is 25 C the height of mercury in capillary is 10 mm.
The thermometer is immersed in a bath of boiling water suddenly. How does the height of
mercury in capillary rise?
Take = 7 sec and = 1.4

Problem 2
The transfer function of a first order instrument with dead time is given by

e 1.5 s
1 0.5s
Calculate the output of this system after 2 seconds for a unit step input.

Problem3

A temperature sensitive transducer is subjected to sudden temperature change.

It takes 10 sec for the transducer to reach final steady state condition.
How long the transducer will take to read half of the temperature difference?

Problem 4
The temperature of water in a deep sea varies as Tx=T0-0.01X, where Tx is the temperature
at depth X meter and T0 is the temperature at sea level. A submarine equipped with a depth
and temperature measuring transducer is allowed to descend at a rate of 0.5 m/sec. The
depth gage is a zero order instrument and the temperature transducer is first order
instrument with time constant of 50 sec.
If the surface water is at 25 C, what is the temperature reported by the thermometer and the
depth gage after 400 sec of descend?

Problem 5
A balloon carrying a first order thermometer with a 15 seconds time constant rises through
the atmosphere at 10 m/sec. Assume that the temperature varies at 0.15 C/50 meters. The
balloon radios temperature and altitude reading back to the ground. At 5000 meter the
balloon radios the temperature as 15 C.
(i) What is the true temperature at 5000 meters?
(ii) What is the true altitude at which 15 C occurs?

Problem 6
A temperature transducer with a time constant of 0.4 sec and a static sensitivity of
0.05 mv/C is used to measure the temperature of a hot liquid medium which changes from
25C to 65C. The transducer is adjusted to read 0C to 25C.
(a) Determine the time taken to read 80% of the final voltage value if the temperature
changes as a step.
(b) Calculate the reading of the transducer at the end of 4 seconds if the temperature
changes at a constant rate of 10 degree per sec from 25 C to 65C.

Problem 7
A first order instrument must measure signals with frequency content upto 200 Hz with an
amplitude inaccuracy of 2 percent.
What is the maximum allowable time constant?
What will be the phase shift at 100 Hz and 200 Hz for the chosen time constant?

Problem 8
A temperature measuring system with a time constant of 3 sec is used to measure
temperature of a heating medium which changes sinusoidally between 350 C and 300 C
with a period of 20 sec. Find the maximum and minimum values of temperature indicated
by the measuring system and the time lag between the input and the output temperature
variation.

Problem 9
A signal at 2 cycles per minute has a noise content with an essential frequency content of
0.3 cycles per second with a noise level 0.707 of signal level. What will be the ratio of
signal to noise after its transmission through an instrument having a time constant of 6
seconds.

Problem 10

A temperature measurement system consists of linear elements and has an overall steadystate sensitivity of unity. The dynamics of the system are determined by the first-order
transfer function of the sensing element. At time t=0, the sensing element is suddenly
transferred from air at 20 C to boiling water. One minute later the element is transferred
back to air. Using the data given below, calculate the system dynamic error at the
following times: t = 10, 20, 50, 120 and 300s.
Sensor data
Mass = 5 X 10-2 kg
Surface area= 10-3 m2
Specific heat = 0.2 J kg-1 C-1
Heat transfer coefficient for air = 0.2 W m-2 C-1
Heat transfer coefficient for water = 1.0 W m-2 C-1