EC 441 Data Acquisition and Control-I
Lecture – 7
Loading Effects and Two-port Networks
Dr. Nizar Khemri
Spring 2025
Ref. Chapter 5 of textbook
Outline
❑ Equivalent Circuits
▪ Thevenin and Norton
▪ Potentiometric Displacement Sensor
❑ Two-port Networks
❑ Process Loading
Electrical Loading
▪ So far, measurement systems are represented as blocks connected by single lines
▪ The transfer of information and energy is in terms of one variable only
▪ Thus, the information transfer between elements is in terms of voltage only
▪ No allowance can therefore be made for the drawing current from the leading element to the loading
element (e.g., current drawn from a thermocouple by an amplifier)
▪ In order to describe both voltage and current behavior at the connection of two elements, we need to
represent each element by equivalent circuits characterized by two terminals
Thermocouple
T mV V
Thermocouple Amplifier Amplifire
Single line
Two terminals Slide 3
Loading Effects of Two Terminal Network
▪ When an element is connected to another element, then the second element can have a loading effect
on the previous element
▪ This loading effect reduces the apparent input to the second element
▪ This introduces an error in the measured physical parameter
▪ This error is calculated by modeling elements using Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits
• “Any network consisting of linear impedances and voltage
sources can be replaced by an equivalent circuit consisting
of a voltage source 𝑬 𝑻𝒉 and a series impedance 𝒁𝑻𝒉”
• “ Any network consisting of linear impedances and voltage
sources can be replaced by an equivalent circuit consisting
of a current source 𝑰 𝑵 in parallel with an impedance 𝒁𝑵”
Slide 4
Loading Effects of Two Terminal Network
• Example of temperature measurement system
Example
• Equivalent model
• Equivalent circuit for amplifier ➔
Slide 5
Loading Effects of Two Terminal Network
▪ And this means that for the amplifier, instead of seeing or amplifying an input of Vin= 40×T μV, it is now
seeing or amplifying only a fraction of that input and calculated as:
2 106
Vin = 40T μV
Example (Cont.)
2 106 + 20
▪ And in turn, the indicator is only seeing a fraction of the output from the amplifier
104
VL = 1000Vin 4
10 + 75
Slide 6
Loading Effects of Two Terminal Network
▪ The output and its loading error is
2 × 10 6 10 4
𝑇𝑀 = 25𝑉𝐿 = 25 ∗ 1000 ∗ 40 ∗ 10 −6 ⋅ 𝑇 = 0.9925𝑇,
2 × 10 6 + 20 10 4 + 75
𝑠𝑜, 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟= 0.9925 − 1 ⋅ 𝑇 = −0.0075𝑇
Example (Cont.)
▪ If we do not use the signal conditioning circuit, the amplifier in this example, then the loading
error becomes
so loading error = (9.9810−4 −1)T = −0.999T
• This means we must have a signal conditioning circuit in order to see the measured temperature
Slide 7
Loading Effects of Two Terminal Network
▪ Example of pH measurement system
Slide 8
Loading Effects of Two Terminal Network (a.c. loading effect)
Model Details in Sec 8.4
• An amplifier may not be the right element to solve
the loading effect
• In the example given, loading error can be reduced
by replacing the recorder with a higher impedance
recorder or with higher sensitivity recorder
• A much better solution is to use a frequency counter
instead of a simple indicator/recorder
Slide 9
Loading Effects of Two Terminal Network
▪ Example of Norton equivalent circuits for Piezoelectric force and pressure sensors
Details of modeling these sensors
are covered in Chapter 8
Slide 10
Example of Thevenin Equivalent Circuit: Displacement Sensor
▪ Linear displacement sensor does not mean linear element
▪ The resistance of the potentiometer varies linearly with
displacement
▪ Loading effects may cause nonlinear behavior
𝑅 𝑇𝐻 ≡ 𝑅 𝑃 𝑥| | 𝑅𝑃 ⋅ (1 − 𝑥) = 𝑅𝑃 ⋅ 𝑥 ⋅ (1 − 𝑥)
𝑹 𝑷 : is the total resistance of the potentiometer
𝒅: is the actual displacement
𝒅 𝑻 : is the total displacement range
Displacement Sensor Thevenin Equivalent Circuit
▪ If the sensor is connected to a load (indicator, recorder,…etc)
𝑅 𝑇𝐻 ≡ 𝑅 𝑃 𝑥 / / 𝑅𝑃 ⋅ (1 − 𝑥) = 𝑅𝑃 ⋅ 𝑥 ⋅ (1 − 𝑥)
𝑉𝑠 ⋅ 𝑅𝑃 ⋅ 𝑥
𝑉𝑇𝐻 ≡ 𝑂 𝐼𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙 = = 𝑉𝑠 𝑥 → Linear
𝑅𝑃 ⋅ 𝑥 + 𝑅𝑃 ⋅ (1 − 𝑥)
𝑅𝐿 𝑅𝐿 𝑅𝑃
𝑂𝑎 𝑐 𝑡 𝑢 𝑎 𝑙 = 𝑉𝐿 = 𝐸 𝑇ℎ = 𝑉𝑠 𝑥 → Non − Linear relationship and depends on ratio
𝑅 𝑇 ℎ +𝑅 𝐿 𝑅 𝑃 𝑥( 1 − 𝑥) + 𝑅 𝐿 𝑅𝐿
Displacement Sensor Thevenin Equivalent Circuit
▪ N(x) has a maximum when
▪ Then the non-linearity as percentage of f.s.d.
▪ Example:
• A 10cm range potentiometer connected to 10kohm recorder working as a displacement sensor. If 0.1w is the maximum
dissipation allowed, and 2% is the maximum non-linearity then, the resistance and supply voltage of potentiometer should be
𝐑𝐏 𝟐𝟎
𝟏𝟓 % < 𝟐% ⇒ 𝐑 𝐏 < × 𝟏𝟎 𝟑 𝛀 ⇒ 𝐑 𝐏 = 𝟏𝐤𝛀
𝐑𝐋 𝟏𝟓
▪ Conclusion
• Loading introduces non-linearity behavior
• Maximum non-linearity, sensitivity and power consumption are used in the design and selectivity of appropriate displacement
sensor
Generalized Effort and Flow Variables
▪ We have seen the electrical loading effects can be described using a pair of variables: voltage and
current
▪ Voltage can be considered as an effort variable y, while current as a flow variable ẋ
▪ By definition, an effort variable drives a flow variable through an impedance
▪ Examples of effort –flow pairs:
❖ Force-velocity
❖ Torque-angular velocity
❖ Pressure difference – volume flow rate
❖ Temperature difference – heat flow rate, etc
▪ This means we can generalize the electrical equivalent circuits of Thevenin and Norton to non-
electrical systems, which allows for studying more complicated systems
Slide 14
Generalized Effort and Flow Variables
▪ Mechanical and temperature systems can be represented by an equivalent electrical circuits
▪ Voltage or e.m.f. represents an effort applied in a given circuit
▪ Current represents the resulting flow of electrons
▪ Similarly in a mechanical system, force represents an effort applied to the system, and velocity
represents the flow resulting from this effort
Slide 15
Example of Electrical Circuit Analogy to Mechanical System
(a)
(b)
▪ Mass is analogous to electrical inductance
(c) ▪ Damping constant is analogous to electrical resistance
▪ 1/stiffness is analogous to electrical capacitance
Slide 16
Example of Electrical Circuit Analogy to Mechanical System
▪ Mechanical system and its equivalent electrical system
• Mechanical system
• Electrical system
+ Ri + idt
di 1
V =L
dt C
▪ The parallel mechanical system can be represented by an equivalent circuit consisting of an inductive element m, a
resistive element λ and a capacitive element 1/k in series
Slide 17
Example of Electrical Circuit Analogy to Thermal System
(a)
(b)
(c) ▪ Thermal resistance is analogous to electrical resistance
▪ Thermal capacitance is analogous to electrical capacitance
Slide 18
Example of Electrical Circuit Analogy to Thermal System
▪ Thermal system and its equivalent electrical system
• Thermal system
𝑑𝑇
𝑀𝐶𝐻 = 𝑈𝐴(𝑇𝐹 − 𝑇)
𝑑𝑡
• Electrical system
▪ The thermal system can be represented by an equivalent circuit consisting of a resistive element
1/UA in series with a capacitive element 𝑴𝐶𝐻
Slide 19
Two-Port Networks
Slide 20
Process Loading
▪ We can now use the concepts of equivalent circuits and two-port networks to study examples of how a
primary sensing element can ‘load’ the process or element being measured
• A physical process representing a mechanical system with the mass, stiffness
and damping constant of mP ,kP and λP can be sensed using an elastic force
sensor with mass, stiffness and damping constant of ms ,ks and λs connected
to a displacement sensor.
• In steady state and hence
• Hence to minimize loading error in the steady state, the stiffness of the
sensor 𝑲 𝑺 must be much greater than the stiffness of the process 𝑲 𝑷
Steady State Error 0 if FS F or if kS kP Slide 21
Process Loading
▪ In dynamic state ẋ 0 and hence using Newton’s second law:
Taking Laplace transform
kP
Z M = (m P s + λ P+
P
) Process impedance
s
k
ZM S
= (m S s + λ S+ S ) Sensor impedance
s
ZM P
x˙ = F (s) − FS (s)
Z M x˙ = FS (s) Dynamic Error 0 if Z M Z M
S S P
ZM ▪ In conclusion, we see that the representation of measurement system elements
FS (s) = S
F (s)
ZM + ZM
S P by two-port networks enables both process and inter-element loading effects to
be quantified
Slide 22
