Noise pressure sensors

In certain cases, the Altering of a noisy sensor is required. Noisy sensors present a challenge. A nuclear-based level sensor, a pressure sensor located too close to a 90° elbow in a line, or an orihce flow meter located immediately downstream of a control valve are examples of noisy sensors. For these cases, tuning the filter is a compromise between removing the noise from the sensor reading and adding lag to the closed-loop response when one is forced to use a noisy sensor reading. 

This can further be enhanced by the so-called lock-in technique, in which modulated signals are used, which after demodulation separate the desired signal from the noise. Both techniques are described here by examples one is a monolithic pressure sensor with moderate piezoresistive bridge signals and the other is a signal evaluation circuit for a high-pressure sensor with very small sensor signal levels. 

Fig. 9. Waters Model 660 solvent programmer, a, a = solvent reservoirs, b, b = dual-head pumps, c, c = pressure sensors, d = solvent programming manifold, e = high-pressure noise filter, f = to column.

The surface temperature was monitored by PtlOO temperature sensors, which were fixed respectively at the bottom, the side wall, the top, and the gas outlet of OC. The Noise Pressure Level (NPL) was monitored by noise analyzer (AWA6270+). 

The ocean bottom, in contrast, is an important environment for seismometer deployment not because of reduced levels of site noise, but because most of the earth is covered by ocean. It is similarly beyond the scope of this entry to treat the relevant installation techniques in detail, except to note some parallels with those used on land. Accurate leveling mitigates coupling of horizontal ground motion into the vertical output. Shallow burial can provide significant shielding from the effects of ocean-bottom currents. Colocated pressure sensors can be used to correct excess noise due to infragravity waves on the vertical. See Ocean-Bottom Seismometers. 

Because of its small size and portabiHty, the hot-wire anemometer is ideally suited to measure gas velocities either continuously or on a troubleshooting basis in systems where excess pressure drop cannot be tolerated. Furnaces, smokestacks, electrostatic precipitators, and air ducts are typical areas of appHcation. Its fast response to velocity or temperature fluctuations in the surrounding gas makes it particularly useful in studying the turbulence characteristics and rapidity of mixing in gas streams. The constant current mode of operation has a wide frequency response and relatively lower noise level, provided a sufficiently small wire can be used. Where a more mgged wire is required, the constant temperature mode is employed because of its insensitivity to sensor heat capacity. In Hquids, hot-film sensors are employed instead of wires. The sensor consists of a thin metallic film mounted on the surface of a thermally and electrically insulated probe. 

The pressure sensitivity of a detector will be one of the factors that determines the long term noise and thus can be very important. It is usually measured as the change in detector output for unit change in sensor-cell pressure. Pressure sensitivity and flow sensitivity are to some extent interdependent, subject to the manner in which the detector functions. The UV detector, the fluorescence detector and the electrical... 

TES are based on the steep temperature dependence of the resistance of superconducting metallic films. The useful temperature range is very narrow. These thermometers which may have a very low intrinsic noise, are fabricated by a vacuum deposition process at very low pressure and are patterned either by photolithography technique (see e.g. ref. [21]) or by micromechanical machining (see e.g. ref. [22]). The dimensionless parameter a = T/R-dR/dT defines the DC quality of a sensor. TES with a as high as 1000 have been built [23],... 

The density of CO2 in the absorption cell, however, is a function of both concentration and bulk air density. In normal process analyzers, where temperature and pressure within the absorption cell are controlled, measurements can be easily referred to gas density by a simple calibration curve. In an open path system, changes in bulk air density must be measured. Indeed, one of the major problems faced in testing the sensor was the development of test facilities where we could control the temperature, pressure and CC>2 more accurately than the sensor could measure. Even the small changes in building pressure associated with ventilation system fluctuations resulted in output signal changes three to four times the sensor signal to noise level. In operation, pressure and temperature near the open cell are measured and used to calculate gas density. 

Relevant issues still to be addressed in constructing amperometric enzyme sensors either using the electrical wiring of enzymes with redox polymers or with flexible polymeric electron mediators are sensor efficiency, accuracy, reproducibility, selectivity, insensitivity to partial pressure of oxygen, detectivity (signal-to-noise ratio) as well as sensor hfetime and biocompatibility [47]. Then we can address manufacturability and the cost of use of either in vitro or in vivo sensors. 

In another study [35], the electrochemical emission spectroscopy (electrochemical noise) was implemented at temperatures up to 390 °C. It is well known that the electrochemical systems demonstrate apparently random fluctuations in current and potential around their open-circuit values, and these current and potential noise signals contain valuable electrochemical kinetics information. The value of this technique lies in its simplicity and, therefore, it can be considered for high-temperature implementation. The approach requires no reference electrode but instead employs two identical electrodes of the metal or alloy under study. Also, in the same study electrochemical noise sensors have been shown in Ref. 35 to measure electrochemical kinetics and corrosion rates in subcritical and supercritical hydrothermal systems. Moreover, the instrument shown in Fig. 5 has been tested in flowing aqueous solutions at temperatures ranging from 150 to 390 °C and pressure of 25 M Pa. It turns out that the rate of the electrochemical reaction, in principle, can be estimated in hydrothermal systems by simultaneously measuring the coupled electrochemical noise potential and current. Although the electrochemical noise analysis has yet to be rendered quantitative, in the sense that a determination relationship between the experimentally measured noise and the rate of the electrochemical reaction has not been finally established, the results obtained thus far [35] demonstrate that this method is an effective tool for... 

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