Control and Instrumentation articles from December 1995

Control and Instrumentation archives from December 1995

Temperature. (new techniques in electronic thermometry)
December 1, 1995... Electronic thermometry gains new techniques While thermocouples and resistance thermometers still cover by far the majority of temperature measurements, alternatives are coming on. Nevertheless, T/Cs and RTDs still account for by far the...

The new face of SCADA systems. (supervisory control and data acquisition systems)(Cover Story)
December 1, 1995... Differences between SCADA packages are increasingly hard to spot. So which one should you choose? The past 12 months have seen the most significant changes in the SCADA market since the first PC-based graphics package was introduced in the...

Radar poised for a level take-off. (microwave systems)
December 1, 1995... If ultrasonics whetted your appetite for non-contact level measurement, new microwave systems offer what you really want Radar or, to be more strictly correct, microwave technology is currently the hottest property in level measurement, growing...

Enhancing reality to make the ideal instrument. (intelligent modelling and imaging)
December 1, 1995... As real-world tasks become more complex, our ability to develop systems that amplify human powers -- to see and manipulate them -- becomes more crucial. Instruments with sensors, such as infrared detector arrays, view things we cannot...

Chart recorders. (latest recorder-controllers)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Recorders stubbornly refuse to go - and the latest recorder-controllers, plus the paperless alternatives are gaining ground Although the demise of chart recorders has been predicted for at least the last decade, they're still stubbornly...

Integrated control systems. (selecting distributed control systems)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... With the convergence of distributed control systems, PLCs and PCs, how do you select what you need? We live in an era when open systems, the scale and cheapness of processor power and the rapid pace of hardware and software development are...

Data acquisition. (peripheral component interconnect)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... PCs were once hobbled by the bandwidth of the ISA bus. That has changed with the advent of PCI PC-based data acquisition is in the process of very rapid change. New hardware and software will permit unheard of simplicity, flexibility and power...

Display systems. (selecting display systems)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... What are your options for displaying data? When choosing systems to display plant information, there are a wide range of options, depending on where you're starting from, who needs to see the data and in what format. As the resources needed for...

Enclosures. (plastic and metal boxes for instrument protection)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... A box is a box is a box, isn't it? Well actually, no - there's a lot more to enclosures than meets the eye Enclosures - boxes, really - are not perhaps what one would normally associate with the most glamorous, or even interesting, aspects of...

Environmental sensors. (U.K. environmental policy)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Britain's environmental industry is growing and will equal the chemical industry within 15 years We reported in December '94 that a green vetting by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said that Britain emits...

Simulators and calibrators. (control equipment accreditation by National Measurement Accreditation Service)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Claims for NAMAS accreditation continue create confusion - we try to clarify this situation Only four of the 12 companies stating NAMAS accreditation in our December '94 flow survey were correct in making this claim. Why is there continuing...

Volume or mass flow. (flow metering and mass metering products)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... The range of technologies for flowmetering is wide, but mass metering is gaining ground Flowmeters cover everything from local indication (low accuracy but reasonable repeatability), to fiscal transfer metering (high accuracy transmitters)....

Gas detection. (new gas detectors)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... From canaries to HART, and from pellistors to infrared detectors - gas detectors are coming on What do HART (the open digital field comms protocol) and the canary have in common? Well, in the world of gas detection, the answer is 'quite a...

On the level. (level detection devices)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... With 10 or so technologies for sensing, many still being further developed, there's more than 'smart' To quote Alan Balcombe of Vega: 'For those that think little changes in level measurement, nothing could be further from the truth'. He's not...

Weighing systems. (selecting weighing systems)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... What should you look for in a weighing system, and what type of load cell should you choose? Today, the use of electrical force transducers, or load cells, is common practice. The development of such transducers started some 50 years ago, the...

Mass flowmeters. (applications and prices of mass metering devices)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Mass metering has a lot to offer, and prices are now coming down - making them more widely applicable Why use a mass flowmeter instead of a volumetric device? Well, if you want accurate, real time monitoring of fluid (gas, liquid or slurry),...

PC software. (new microcomputer software)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... PCs are used for all sorts of tasks - and as power mounts, there's more With the advent of the Pentium, symmetrical multiprocessing and now the Pentium Pro (P6), PC power has reached an all-time high. But PCs of substantially lesser stature...

SCADA and CIM towards integration. (supervisory control and data acquisition and computer integrated manufacturing systems)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Microsoft's BackOffice Suite, Windows NT, Windows 95, as well as the whole MES bit - it's all happening Microsoft Windows 3.0 had a dramatic impact on SCADA. It delivered a mouse-driven, easy-to-use environment, and its inter-application...

Pressure devices. (developments in process pressure devices)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... It's not just about smart - sensing and mechanical developments remain absolutely key Looking at recent developments with process pressure transmitters, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's all about smart functionality. Certainly, on...

Programmable controllers. (developments in programmable controllers)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... PLCs are acquiring many of the features of PCs, and are posing a serious challenge to DCSs Traditionally, distributed control systems (DCSs) have been dominant in the process industries. They offer high level, algorithm-based control for...

Wireless telemetry. (using high speed radio telemetry and low speed radio fieldbus for wireless connections)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Wireless connections are now easy, using high speed radio telemetry and low speed radio fieldbus Wireless connections are easier and more widely used than ever before in industry, enabling data acquisition systems, among others, to operate in...

Transmitters for smart pressure. (U.K. process industry's use of smart instrumentation)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... The future may be smart, but why is industry apparently continuing to ignore this important fact? At last there appears to be some movement in the UK industry towards wider scale purchase, if not use, of smart transmitters. According to recent...

Temperature controllers. (developments in controller technology)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Today's small controllers have some of the features formerly only found in full-blown process controllers The pace of development of controllers has increased in recent years. Features common in process controllers have been ported to small,...

Transmitters and signal conditioners. (developments in signal isolators, conditioners, amplifiers and transmitters)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... Signal isolators, conditioners, amplifiers and transmitters continue to get smaller and smarter Since monitoring and control went electronic, literally decades ago, it's been the job of signal conditioners to provide the interface between the...

Managing valves. (improving maintenance handling and scheduling of conventional arrangements with smart systems)('96 Product Survey Directory)
December 1, 1995... With valves contributing to 80% of unexpected plant shutdowns, digital diagnostics is welcome Why install smart valves instead of conventional? What are the benefits of microprocessor intelligence and digital communications? The answer,...