MANOMETER

Bulacan Agricultural State College (BASC)

Preferred By: Erwin Blas BSIT-2B

Manometer
A manometer is an device employed to
measure pressure.

Variety of manometer designs

simple, common design is to seal a length
of glass tubing and bend the glass tube into a U-shape. The glass tube is then filled with a liquid, typically mercury, so that all trapped air is removed from the sealed end of the tube. The glass tube is then positioned with the curved region at the bottom.

 After the mercury settles to the bottom of

the manometer, a vacuum is produced in the sealed tube (the left tube in the picture). The open tube is connected to the system whose pressure is being measured. In the sealed tube, there is no gas to exert a force on the mercury (except for some mercury vapor).

 In the tube connected to the system, the

gas in the system exerts a force on the mercury. The net result is that the column of mercury in the left (sealed) tube is higher than that in the right (unsealed) tube. The difference in the heights of the columns of mercury is a measure of the pressure of gas in the system.

 In the example at the left, the top of the

left column of mercury corresponds to 875 mm on the scale. The top of the right column of mercury corresponds to 115 mm. The difference in heights is 875 mm 115 mm = 760. mm, which indicates that the pressure is 760. mm Hg or 760. torr.

 This method for measuring pressure led to

the use of millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) as a unit of pressure. Today 1 mm Hg is called 1 torr. A pressure of 1 torr or 1 mm Hg is literally the pressure that produces a 1 mm difference in the heights of the two columns of mercury in a manometer.

F=mg In this equation, m is the mass of mercury in the column and g = 9.80665 m/sec2 is the gravitational acceleration. This force is distributed over the cross-sectional area of the column ( A ). The pressure resulting from the column of mercury is thus P= mg/ A

 The mass of mercury is given by the

product of the density of mercury ( dHg ) and the volume of mercury ( V ). For a cylindrical column of mercury, the volume of mercury is the product of the crosssectional area and the height of the column ( h ). These relationships product the following equation. P= mg/ A= dHgVg/ A=dHgAhg/A=dHghg

Vertical U-Tube Manometer

The pressure difference in a vertical U-Tube manometer can be expressed as

pd = h (1) where pd = pressure = specific weight of the fluid in the tube (kN/m3, lb/ft3 h = liquid height (m, ft)
The specific weight of water, which is the most commonly used fluid in u-tube manometers, is 9.8 kN/m3 or 62.4 lb/ft3.

Inclined U-Tube Manometer

 The pressure difference in a inclined utube can be expressed as

pd = h sin() (2) where = angle of column relative the horizontal plane

Inclining the tube manometer will increase the accuracy of the measurement.

Example - Differential Pressure Measurement in an Orifice

A water manometer connects the upstream and
downstream of an orifice located in an air flow. The difference height of the water column is 10 mm. The pressure difference head can then be expressed as:

pd = (9.8 kN/m3) (103 N/kN) (10 mm) (10-3 m/mm) = 98 N/m2 (Pa) where
9.8 (kN/m3) is the specific weight of water in SI-units.

Example - Differential Pressure Measurement with an Inclined U-Tube manometer

We use the same data as in the example above, except that the U-Tube is inclined to 45o. The pressure difference head can then be expressed as:

pd = (9.8 kN/m3) (103 N/kN) (10 mm) (103 m/mm) sin(45) = 69.3 N/m2 (Pa)