MeasurementBlog

Do you understand Thermocouples?
http://www.youtube.com/user/ControlEngineeringTV
Control Engineering Editor Peter Welander demonstrates the concept and use of thermocouples, including one made from scrapbox components. (10 minutes). I think this is a lot cooler than the TV ads for Sprint mobile that Dan Hesse makes (in MHO). Way to go, Peter!

NPTEL, India’s National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning, has developed over the past two years an enormous group (Uploads=4361, as of 7 March 2010) of online, advanced leaning video lectures.

They are aimed to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum based video and web courses. This is being carried out by seven IITs and IISc Bangalore as a collaborative project.

Each is about one hour and requires a basic understanding of the terms used, an ability to listen and understand the lecturer, almost always a noted Indian lecturer with a distinct accent (to Western ears), and a willingness to persist through some basic lecture techniques that can be as limited as a speaker facing the camera with minimum of visual aids (whiteboard, blackboard).

Here is a sample video, Lecture-3 on Discrete Time Signal and Systems (one of the top rated in the country) by Prof.T.K.Basu, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, India.

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A Tour of the ABB’s Stonehouse flow meter calibration rig in the UK

Here’s a video of something that few get to see or appreciate, a calibration rig for a large, industrial flow meter calibration facility. This one is a very large one, for flowmeters up to 3000 mm (nearly 10 feet) in diameter at >ABB’s facility in the UK.

Do all flowmeters need to be calibrated. You bet they do! Like all measurement devices, flowmeter are no more precise than their fundamental calibration.

Sometimes it is an easy task; one can calibrate a simple, low flow meter with some water a volume measurement device (a bucket?) and a timer (stopwatch). For others, especially ones for very large flow rates and unusual fluids, it can be a challenge.

Born in 1792, the French mathematician and physicist Gustave Gaspard de Coriolis was the first to describe the force that history has named after him. This force is particularly noticeable in rotating systems.

The experiments and simulations shown in this film illustrate what it’s all about, courtesy of the YouTube video by the Endress & Hauser organization a flowmeter manufacturer, among other process measurement & control products.