Instrumentation and

Measurement Techniques

Lecture 13
Measurement Bridge and System
 Objective

Study measurement bridge

comprehensively.
 Role of bridges
Measurement bridge can enable us to perform these
following measurement:
Resistance
Reactance (capacitance and inductance)
Frequency
Testing and analyzing of antenna and transmission
line performance
Determining the figure of merit (Q factor) of
electrical parts and resonant circuit
 Merit of using bridge circuit
Advantages of using bridge circuit:
Most accurate types of measurement devices.
Reliable and very easy to perform re-calibration
less temperature affection compare to other type
of measurement device.
Small in size and low power operation.
Less maintenance required
 Limitation of bridges
Expensive
To ensure the highest accuracy, the detector need to be
extremely sensitive.
Very difficult to ensure the accurate value of the
potentiometer that if the bridge is balanced.
Interconnection of electricity and testing leads always carry
resistance, hence this always is the main difficulties for the
user to measurement all the mesurands.
 Difficulties
Normally the materials for standard resistors and sensor are
different hence in practice, temperature does degrade the
performance of bridges.
Current that flows through all the impedance always exhibit
self-heating hence introduce temperature difference, again
accuracy is affected
There is no such thing as extremely high sensitive
galvanometer, as long as that is a finite numerical shown; it
still not high enough.
The ability of the bridge circuit to detect a balanced
condition is not impaired by the length or the leads
connecting the bridge to the electronic part to be
measured.The accuracy of the measurement is not always
acceptable, because the connecting leads exhibit not only
resistive characteristics.
 Wheatstone Bridge
Resistance varies ranging from 1ohm to 1Megaohm can be
measured with an accuracy of approximately 0.1% error.
Resistance less than 1ohm is almost impossible to measure
due to the leads connecting and joins resistance are become
significant.
Resistance greater than 1Megaohm become difficult because
of two factors:
A) The ratio of standard resistance involve a ratio of on the
order 1,000 to 1 which it almost impossible to determine
accurately.
B) The voltage applied to the bridge must be substantially
increased to obtain definite galvanometer action.
 Kelvin bridge
Kelvin bridge is an instrument to measure resistance as low
as 1micro-ohm.
Commercially manufactured Kelvin bridge have accuracy of
approximately 2% for resistane range from 0.001 ohm to
25ohm.
Kelvin bridge
 Other bridges
Schering Bridge:
Measurement of capacitors and dielectric loss.
Measurement of capacitance with a known capacitance
The dissipation factor Q of a capacitor is defined as the
reciprocal of the dissipation factor, which is the ratio of the
capacitors dielectric constant to its conductivity at a given
frequency.
The accuracy of this type of bridge is excellent, about 2%
for dissipation factor ranging from 0.00002 to 0.6.
Typical accuracy for capacitance in the range of 100
picofarads to 1 microfarad are 0.2%
Hay Bridge:
Measurement of inductance and Q of inductance.
Measurement of inductance with a known capacitance
It is used to measured high Q-coil. At Q >10, calibration
error of 1% and Q>30, calibration error of 0.1%
Typical accuracy for inductance in the range of 1
micohenry to 100 henry are 2%