Measurement and Control

doi: 10.1177/002029407300600906pmid: N/A

Church, Fred

doi: 10.1177/002029407300600901pmid: N/A

doi: 10.1177/002029407300600902pmid: N/A

doi: 10.1177/002029407300600903pmid: N/A

Brain, T. J. S.; Reid, J.

doi: 10.1177/002029407300600904pmid: N/A

A significant factor which affects the accurate prediction of the discharge coefficients of square edged orifice plates is the precise shape of the edge. A rounding of only 0·002 of the orifice diameter can increase the coefficient by 1% so that a reliable method of assessing the edge sharpness is of considerable benefit to the instrument engineer. In the work described in this paper, a systematic intercomparison of three methods of measuring orifice edge sharpness has been undertaken. The methods tested involved casting, lead foil impression and optical techniques, and their relative reliability and effectiveness has been assessed.While the results obtained from the casting and lead foil methods showed good agreement, the foils did not follow the edge profiles as closely as the castings. The casting procedure can also be used to determine the shapes of re-entrant profiles which will not be detected using lead foil impressions. However, the casting method required more skill and considerably more time to complete measurements than the impression method.The optical method proved to be the least reliable, since measurements depended on subjective judgment. Nevertheless, this measuring procedure could be completed more quickly than the others, and these tests indicated that it may be used to examine large diameter plates for burrs or excessive rounding.

McKenzie, W. H.; Richards, A. H.

doi: 10.1177/002029407300600905pmid: N/A

When using thermocouples directly connected to ultra-violet galvanometers for recording temperature transients, the low-voltage outputs necessitate the use of galvanometers with low natural frequencies. This puts a limitation on the overall dynamic performance. In a particular application, the user has to select the damping resistor for the galvanometer and the work describes how this is done so that the system is optimised for minimum integrated errors during a transient.The transient considered was of an exponential type which occurs frequently in practice and it is shown that the correct damping ratio and hence damping resistor for the galvanometer depends upon the non-dimensional parameter defined by the product of the natural frequency of the galvanometer and the time constant of the exponential.The results show that the usual value of damping ratio of 0·64 based on minimum sinusoidal distortion has to be modified for best dynamic performance. However, if the non-dimensional parameter is sufficiently large, higher values of damping can be used, which produce a large trace with acceptably small errors.