FUNCTIONAL

ELEMENTS OF
INSTRUMENT
ANIL KUMAR PATHAK
ME(REGULAR)
INSTUMENTATION AND CONTROL
NITTTR, CHANDIGARH
FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF AN
INSTRUMENT
 Itis possible and desirable to describe both the
operation and the performance of measuring
instrument and associated equipments.
 Performance is described in terms of static and
dynamic characteristics.
 Operation can be described in terms of functional
elements.
 Each functional element is made up of distinct
component or group of components which perform
the required and definite steps in measurement.
FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF AN
INSTRUMENT
 PRIMARY SENSING ELEMENT

 firstreceives energy from the measured medium and

produces an output depending , in some way ,on the
measured quantity (measurand).
 An instrument always extracts some energy from the

measured medium. Thus the measured quantity is

always disturbed by the act of measurement, which
makes a perfect measure theoretically impossible.
 Good instruments are designed to minimize this

loading effect.
 This stage is also known as detector transducer stage.
VARIABLE-CONVERSION ELEMENT

 The output of primary sensing element may

be any electrical signal i.e. voltage,
frequency etc or any physical variable like
displacement etc.
 convert the output signal of the primary
sensing element to another more suitable
variable, while preserving the information
content of the original signal.
VARIABLE-MANIPULATION ELEMENT

 Sometimes it become necessary to manipulate the

signal.
 change, in numerical value according to the some
definite rule but a preservation of the physical nature
of the variable, e.g. an electronic amplifier (analog).
 It does not necessarily follow the variable conversion
element but may precede it.
 The combination of variable conversion element and
variable manipulation elements is called signal or
data conditioning element.
 These processes may be linear like amplification,
integration ,addition etc or nonlinear like modulation
, detection , sampling etc.
DATA-TRANSMISSION ELEMENT

 when the functional elements are separated,

it becomes necessary to transmit the data
from one to another.
 It may be as simple as shaft and bearing or as
complicated as a telemetry system for
transmitting the signals from satellites to
ground.
DATA-PRESENTATION ELEMENT

 presents the information about the measured

quantity into a form recognizable by one of
human senses.
 This function includes the simple indication
of a pointer moving over a scale.
 These devices may be analog or digital
indicating instruments like ammeter,
voltmeter etc.
DATA-STORAGE/PLAYBACK ELEMENT
 Sometimes it is necessary to record the
measured data for further analysis.
 In case the data is to be recorded, recorders
like magnetic tapes, high speed camera,
storage type C.R.T. , printers or
microprocessors may be used.
 Storage-pen/ink
 Storage/playback – Tape
recorder/reproducer, memory
FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF
PRESSURE GAUGE
FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF
PRESSURE THERMOMETER
THANKS