Lecture 3 Measurement System Behavior

Goals of the lecture

Understand how the system responds to a variety of input signals Understand how the instrument being used modifies the measurand Characterize the behavior of 0th, 1st and 2nd order systems Use the response of first and second order systems to predict the behavior of simple instruments and transducers Use transfer functions to describe system behavior

Example
Your boss asks you to find the temperature of the liquid in a tank which is part of a manufacturing process. Using a mercury thermometer, you record the temperatures over several minutes what value do you report to her?

The Problem
For every sensor (as well as every part of the sensor system), we need to describe how that portion of the system responds to the imposed input

General Model for a Measurement System

Most measurement system dynamic behavior can be characterized by a linear ordinary differential equation of order n:

where:

 System response is determined by mechanical elements (mass, stiffness, and damping) and electrical elements (resistance, inductance, and capacitance) that form the components of most measurement system. Sensors may use mechanical elements (e.g., a spring of known stiffness can be used to determine static force by measuring spring deflection) or electrical elements (change of resistance to measure strain as in a strain gage), or most commonly, a combination of both. Electrical filters, amplifiers, and other electronics use electrical elements to eliminate noise, remove DC signals, or to boost signal level. No element is pure - our spring also has mass that will restrict its ability to determine dynamic forces (i.e., the springs motion creates an additional force due to its acceleration). Elements interact - for example, the springs stiffness and mass create its natural frequency All systems possess damping (from friction, viscosity, inductance, etc.) that is usually helpful

Zero-Order System
The simplest model of a system is the zero-order system, for which all the derivatives drop out: y = K F(t) K is measured by static calibration. Used for static measurements only - cannot be used dynamically A tire gauge determines unknown pressure by measuring the deflection of a spring.

First-Order Systems Example

Suppose a bulb thermometer originally indicating 20C is suddenly exposed to a fluid temperature of 37 C. Develop a simple model to simulate the thermometer output response. The rate at which energy is exchanged between the sensor and the environment through convection, , must be balanced by the storage of energy within the thermometer, dE/dt. For a constant mass temperature sensor,

This can be written in the form

dividing by hAs

This equation can be written in the form first order differential equation:

or

First-Order Systems (Cont.)

The solution to the first ordinary differential equation: or is the time required for the output to achieve 63% of the difference between the initial and final values Rise time, settling time these are instrumentation specs (e.g., rise time = 15 ms, 5% settling time = 30 ms) The output response of the system to unit step input

First-Order Systems (Cont.)

Harmonically Excited FirstOrder System

The angular frequency () of the input and output are the same, but the amplitude (and phase lag) of the output depend on . We can therefore describe the entire frequency response characteristics in terms of a magnitude ratio and a phase shift Note: is the only system characteristic which affects the frequency response

First-Order Systems (Cont.)

The amplitude is usually expressed in terms of the decibel dB = 20 log10 M().

A useful measure of the phase shift is the time delay of the signal:

The frequency bandwidth of an instrument is defined as the frequency below which M()=0.707, or dB = -3 ("3 dB down"). First order systems act as low pass filters, in other words they attenuate high frequencies.

Zero phase lag is ideal, but a linear phase lag is often acceptable

Second-Order Systems
Example of a second order system

or where n is the natural frequency and (zeta) is the damping ratio.

Homogeneous Solution
The form of the homogeneous solution depends on the roots of the characteristic equation

The particular solution will depend on the forcing function F(t).

Unit Step Function Input

For an underdamped system, 0 < < 1, F(t) = AU(t),

For a critically damped system ( =1) the solution is:

For an over-damped system ( >1) the solution is:

For under-damped systems, the output oscillates at the ringing frequency d

and

and

Rise Time By definition it is the time required for the system to achieve a value of 90% of the step input. The rise time is decreased by decreasing the damping, Obviously there is a tradeoff between fast response and ringing in a second order system. Settling Time The settling time is defined as the time required for the system to settle to within 10% of the steady state value.

Frequency Response
If F(t) = A sin t, the solution is given by The first term is a transient which will eventually die out the steady-state response where and

Resonance Frequency Under-damped second order systems may resonate or oscillate at a greater magnitude than the input, M() > 1.

Systems with a damping ratio greater than > 0.707 do not resonate.