Pressure Sensors: Working Principles of Static and Dynamic Calibration

This paper starts with an overview of the main principles used for pressure measurements, focusing on their usage in industrial applications' domains. Then, the importance of calibration procedures, namely, static and dynamic calibration of pressure sensors, is analyzed. Regarding calibration, it is important to note that there are several applications where the pressure signals to be measured can have large variations in short periods of time. In industrial applications, particularly in continuous production processes, generally, dynamic pressure measurements are less common; however, they are still required in several cases, such as control loops that are very sensitive to pressure variations, even if the frequencies of those variations are in the range of a few tens of hertz, or even lower. The last part of the paper presents the hardware and software of a flexible and low-cost static and dynamic pressure calibrator that also presents the capability to generate arbitrary waveform pressure signals for calibration and testing purposes. The proposed calibrator also includes the following advantages: remote pressure sensing capabilities that can be used to minimize calibration errors, such as those associated with capillary effects and pressure leakages; portability; and low cost. The paper ends with some experimental results obtained with the proposed calibrator.