IndIra InstItute of aIrcraft engIneerIng

PRESSURE AND TEMPERATURE GAUGE

1. Measurement of Pressure
 In many of the system associated with the operation of ac and engine, liquid and gas are used
the pressure of which must be measured and indicated.
 The gauges and indicating system fall into two main categories
(a) Direct Reading
(b) Remote reading

(a) Direct Reading:

 These are almost entirely based on Bourdon tube principle which we described earlier.
 The general construction and example of this type of pressure gauge given in picture

Direct Reading

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(b) Remote reading:
 This type is available in a verity o forms but all have one common feature.
 They consist of two main components.
 A transmitter unit located at the pressure sources and an indicator mounted on appropriate
panel.
 They have distinct advantages over direct reading gauges.
 The pressure of hazardous fluids such as fuel, engine oil and certain hydraulic fluid can be
measured at their source and not brought up to the cockpit.
 The majority of system in current use of the electrical transmission type.
 Transmitters are therefore made up of mechanical and electrical section.
 Indicator can either synchronous receiver dc or ac radiometers and in some applications
servo operated.

2. Pressure Transducers
 Pressure Transducers use an electrical system in conjunction with mechanical gauges to
convert the deflection due to pressure changes into electrical signals.
 Pressure Transducers are useful to measure pressures continuously such that the electrical
signal supplied to some control system can be used to monitor the pressure variations.
 Some typical types of pressure transducers can be capacitive, magnetic, resistive, or
piezoelectric.

3. Electronic pressure sensors

 A pressure sensor measures pressure, typically of gases or liquids.
 A pressure sensor usually acts as a transducer; it generates an electronic signal as a function
of the pressure imposed.
 Although there are various types of pressure transducers, one of the most common is the
strain-gage base transducer.
 The conversion of pressure into an electrical signal is achieved by the physical deformation of
strain gages which are bonded into the diaphragm of the pressure transducer.
 Pressure applied to the pressure transducer produces a deflection of the diaphragm which
introduces strain to the gages.
 The strain will produce an electrical resistance change proportional to the pressure.

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4. Capacitance pressure transducers
 Capacitance pressure transducers were originally developed for use in low vacuum research.
 This capacitance change results from the movement of a diaphragm element.
 The diaphragm is usually metal or metal-coated quartz and is exposed to the process pressure
on one side and to the reference pressure on the other.
 Depending on the type of pressure, the capacitive transducer can be either an absolute,
gauge, or differential pressure transducer.
 Stainless steel is the most common diaphragm material used, but for corrosive service, high-
nickel steel alloys, such as Inconel or Hastelloy, give better performance.
 Tantalum also is used for highly corrosive, high temperature applications.
 In a capacitance-type pressure sensor, a high-frequency, high-voltage oscillator is used to
charge the sensing electrode elements.
 In a two-plate capacitor sensor design, the movement of the diaphragm between the plates is
detected as an indication of the changes in process pressure.
 As shown in Figure, the deflection of the diaphragm causes a change in capacitance that is
detected by a bridge circuit.
 This circuit can be operated in either a balanced or unbalanced mode.
 In balanced mode, the output voltage is fed to a null detector and the capacitor arms are varied
to maintain the bridge at null.
 Therefore, in the balanced mode, the null setting itself is a measure of process pressure.
 When operated in unbalanced mode, the process pressure measurement is related to the ratio
between the output voltage and the excitation voltage.

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  Differential pressures as low as 0.01 inches of water can readily be measured.
 Capacitance-type sensors are often used in low-differential and low-absolute pressure
applications.
 They also are quite responsive, because the distance the diaphragm must physically travel is
only a few microns.

5. The potentiometric pressure sensor

 The potentiometric pressure sensor provides a simple method for obtaining an electronic
output from a mechanical pressure gauge.
 The device consists of a precision potentiometer, whose wiper arm is mechanically linked to a
Bourdon or bellows element.
 The movement of the wiper arm across the potentiometer converts the mechanically detected
sensor deflection into a resistance measurement, using a Wheatstone bridge circuit.
 The mechanical nature of the linkages connecting the wiper arm to the Bourdon tube, bellows,
or diaphragm element introduces unavoidable errors into this type of measurement.
 Temperature effects cause additional errors because of the differences in thermal expansion
coefficients of the metallic components of the system.
 Errors also will develop due to mechanical wear of the components and of the contacts.
 Potentiometric transducers can be made extremely small and installed in very tight quarters,
such as inside the housing of a 4.5-in.dial pressure gauge.
 They also provide a strong output that can be read without additional amplification.
 This permits them to be used in low power applications.
 They are also inexpensive. Potentiometric transducers can detect pressures between 5 and
10,000 psig (35 KPa to 70 MPa).
 Their accuracy is between 0.5% and 1% of full scale, not including drift and the effects of
temperature.

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6. DC Synchronous System:
 The indicator is of the normal Desynn type.
 The pressure sensing element consists of a bellow which is open to the pressure source.
 When pressure is admitted to the interior of the bellow, it expends and moves the rod up, thus
rotating the lever.
 This in turn moves the pin and brushes coupled to it through a small angle over the coil.
 The resistance changes produced set up varying voltage and current combination within the
indicator which is calibrated for the appropriate pressure range.
 A cup shaped pressing is fitted inside the bellow and forms a connection for a push rod which
bears against a rocking lever pivoted on a fixed part of mechanism.

Circuit Diagramme of basic Desynn System Micro Desynn Transmitter

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7. AC Inductor and Ratio Meter System

Transmitter and Indicator

 When a drum or disc of a non - magnetic conducting material is placed in a rotating magnetic field,
eddy currents are induced in it.
 The reaction between the rotating flux and the eddy current produced by it creates a torque which
rotates the disc or drum.
 The rotating flux is produced by the current or voltage to be measured.
 The eddy current again is proportional to the flux.
 The single phase supply is converted into two phases in the instrument that is done by split phase.
 The operation of this system is dependent on the production of a current ratio by a variable
inductor transmitter.
 A spring provided to control loading on the bellow and armature cores.
 The essential parts of the indicator are shown in figure.
 The temperature effect is therefore compensated by connecting a high temp coefficient resister
across the coil of the indicator.

8. Remote indicating Fuel and oil pressure gauges:

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 Fuel and oil pressure indications can be conventially obtained through use of the various
synchro systems.
 The type of synchro system used may be the same for either fuel or oil pressure
measurement.
 However an oil system transmitter is usually not interchangeable with a fuel system
transmitter.
 The figure shows a change in oil pressure introduced into the synchro transmitter causes an
electrical signal to be transmitted through the interconnecting wiring to the synchro receiver.
 This signal causes the receiver rotor and the indicator pointer to move a distance proportional
to the amount of pressure exerted by the oil.
 Most oil pressure transmitters are composed of two main parts, a bellow mechanism for
measuring pressure and a synchro assembly.
 The pressure of the oil causes linier displacement of the synchro rotor.

Remote indicating Fuel and oil pressure gauges circuit diagramme

 The amount of displacement is proportional to the pressure, and varying voltage is set up in
the synchro stator.
 These voltages are transmitted to the synchro indicator. In some installation, duel indicators
are used to obtained indication from two sources.
 One some ac both oil and fuel pressure transmitters are joined through a junction and operate
a synchro oil and fuel pressure indicator.

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9. Manifold Pressure Gauge

 The manifold pressure gauge is an engine instrument typically used in piston aircraft engines to
measure the pressure inside the induction system of an engine.
 That's why at idle power your manifold pressure gauge might read 10 or 12 inches when the outside
ambient pressure is 30 inches.
 Although it’s technically termed as aircraft manifold pressure monitoring, the word “pressure” in this
case, is a bit of a misnomer.
 This is because the aircraft manifold pressure data is not about pressure but suction.
 The cylinders in any aircraft engine are like a large suction pump because the cylinders are constantly
sucking air into itself.
 The MAP sensor therefore, if anything, is reading suction not ram air pressure.
 This means your engines are actually starving for air creating a vacuum pressure within the intake
manifold.
 As the piston descends with the inlet valve open, a partial vacuum is created.
 It is this vacuum sucks in fuel into the intake.
 Therefore, greater the vacuum, greater the air-fuel mixture and hence greater the power output from
the aircraft engine.
 So, the more air-fuel mixture pumped into the cylinders, the more power the engine develops and
enables us to fly higher or faster.
 In a turbocharged engine, the limits as per manufacturer settings.
 Effectively, when the engine is shut down, the MAP should read roughly the same as current
atmospheric pressure setting.
 Manifold pressure gauges or ‘boost’ gauges as they are colloquially termed, are of the direct-
reading type calibrated to measure absolute pressure in inches of mercury.
 Before considering a typical example, it will be useful to outline briefly the general principle
involved in the supercharging of an aircraft engine.
 The power output of an internal combustion engine depends on the density of the combustible
mixture of fuel and air introduced into its cylinders at that part of the operating cycle known as
the induction Stroke.
 On this stroke, the piston moves down the cylinder, an inlet valve opens, and the fuel/air
mixture, or charge prepared by the carburetor, enter the cylinder as a result of a pressure
difference acting across it during the stroke.

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 If. For example, an engine is running in atmospheric condition corresponding to the standard
sea-level pressure of 14.7 lbf/in2, and it is this pressure difference which ‘pushes’ the charge
into the cylinder.
 An engine in which the charge is induced in this manner is said to be normally aspirated; its
outstanding characteristics a second example in which it develops steadily falls off with
decrease of atmospheric pressure.
 This may be understood by considering a second example in which it is assumed that the
engine is operating at an altitude of 10,000ft.
 At this altitude, the atmospheric pressure is reduced by an amount which is about a third of the
sea-level value, and on each induction stroke the cylinder pressures will decrease in roughly
the same proposition.
 This means then at 10,000ft only a third of the required charge gets into the cylinders, and
since power is governed by the quantity of charge, we can only expect a third of the power
developed at sea-level.
 This limitation on the high-altitude performance of normally-aspirated engine can be overcome
by artificially increasing the available pressure so as to maintain as far as possible a sea-level
value in the induction system.
 The process of increasing pressure and charge density is known as supercharging or boosting,
and the device; Played is, in effect, an elaborate from of centrifugal air pump fitted between the
carburetor and cylinders and driven from the engine crankshaft through step-up gearing.
 It pumps by giving the air a very high velocity, which is gradually reduced as it passes through
diffuser vanes and volute, the reduction, is speed giving the required increase in pressure.
 In order to measure the boost pressure delivered by the supercharger and so obtain an
indication of engine power, it is necessary to have a gauge which indicates absolute pressure.
 The mechanism of typical gauge working on this principle is illustrated in Fig.
 The measuring element is made up of two bellows, one open to the induction manifold and the
other evacuated and sealed.
 Controlling spring is fitted inside the sealed bellows and distension of both bellows is
transmitted to the pointer via the usual lever, the quadrant and pinion mechanism.
 A fitter is located at the inlet to the open bellows, where there is also restriction to smooth out
any pressure surges.

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