Chapter 1

Process Instrumentation
and PID

EP320 #Jan – Apr 2020

 Recall:
You have learned these in Intro to Material
Balance ….
 Now:
What you should know at the end of this
course EP 320?
 Future:
As Chemical Engineer, you should able to do
this…

biodiesel production from waste cooking oil (WCO): esterification section

 Table of Content

Chap 1a) Introduction

Chap 1b)

Chap 1c)

Chap 1d)
 Instrumentation is the science of automated
measurement and control.

 Instruments are man-made devices that measure the

parameter of physical variables.

 Highly useful and cost effective as it contribute to:

 Evolving better quality control

 Higher plant utilization

 Better man power productivity

 Material and energy saving

 Speedier and accurate data reductions

 There have been significant developments in the
field of instrumentation.

 It encompasses the area of detection, acquisition, control and

analysis of data.

 Instrumentation is indispensable.

 Instrumentation is very vital to modern industries

 Instrument system act as extension on human sense and quite

often facilitate retrieval of information from complex
situation.
Chap 3: Pressure Chap 4: Flow

Chap 2: Temperature Chap 5: Level

 Common motivating factors for carrying the
measurement are:

I. Measurement of system parameters information

II. Control of certain process/operation
III. Quality control in industries
IV. Simulation of system condition
V. Experimental design studies
VI. To perform various manipulation
VII. Testing of materials/maintenance the standard and
specification of the product
VIII. Verification of physical phenomena/scientific theories
 If we can’t measure something, it is really pointless to try
to control it.

 This “something” usually takes one of the following forms

in industry:

 Fluid pressure
 Fluid flow rate
 The temperature of an object
 Fluid volume stored in a vessel
 Chemical concentration
 Machine position, motion, or acceleration
 Physical dimension(s) of an object
 Count (inventory) of objects
 Electrical voltage, current, or resistance
 FUNCTIONAL ELEMENT
Transducer
Those that form the
Signal integral parts of all
Functional element

basic instruments
conditioning
Data
presentation

Calibration Those which may be

incorporated in a
particular system
External power
depending on the
Auxiliary
type of requirement,
Feedback the nature of
measurement
Microprocessor technique etc.
 Basic Functional Elements
 Transducer element
 Element that sense & convert the desired input to a more
convenient and practicable form to be handle by the
measurement systems

 Signal conditioning/ intermediate modifying

element
 For manipulating /processing the output of the transducer in
a suitable form

 Data presentation element

 For giving the information about the measurand and
measured variable in quantitative form
 (b)

(a) Bourdon tube pressure gauge (b) Functional elements of the Bourdon tube pressure gauge
 The pressure applied to the hollow oval-shaped
bent tube (Bourdon tube), deforms the cross section
of the tube as well as causes a relative motion,
proportional to the applied pressure, of free end
of the tube with respect to its fixed end.

 This tube act as transducer element as it convert the desire input into a
displacement x at its free end.

 This displacement is amplified by the combined lever and the gearing

arrangement which may be referred to as the signal conditioning elements.

 Finally, the movement of the pointer attached to the gear on a scale gives an
indication of the pressure. Thus pointer and scale constitute the data
presentation elements.
 Signal conditioning Data
Presentation

Transducer Element

Fuel lever gauge in our car

 Auxiliary Functional Elements
 Calibration element
 To provide a built in calibration facility

 External power element

 To facilitate the working of one/ more or the element like the
transducer element, the signal conditioning element, the data
processing element or the feedback element

 Feedback element
 To control the variation of the physical quantity that is being
measured. It provided in the null-seeking potentiometric/Wheatstone
bridge devices to make them automatic and self balancing

 Microprocessor element
 To facilitate the manipulation of data for the purpose of simplifying/
accelerating the data interpretation. Always used in conjunctions with
analog-to-digital converter which is incorporated in the signal
conditioning element
Fuel lever gauge in our car