Transducers & Measurement
Sumi George
Assistant Professor,
GEC Kozhikode
Measurement of resistance, capacitance and inductance-
DC and AC bridges
• Wheatstone Bridge
• Kelvin’s Double bridge
• Maxwell’s inductance bridge and Maxwell’s inductance capacitance bridge
• Schering bridge
• Wien’s bridge (Phasor diagram required)
Bridge circuits & their importance
• Used for measuring resistance, capacitance inductance
• Consists of a network having four arms
• Use comparison measurement & null indication principle
• Unknown component’s value is calculated when the bridge is balanced
Kelvin bridge
• Modification of the Wheatstone bridge
circuit
• Used usually to measure very low values of
resistance in the range 1Ω to 0.00001 Ω
Kelvin bridge
• R3 represents the resistance of the connecting lead from R3 to Rx.
• The galvanometer can be connected to point m or point n.
• If it is connected to m, the resistance of the connecting lead Ry is
added to the unknown Rx.
• If it is connected to point n, Ry is added to arm R3, and the resulting
resistance Rx will be lower than the correct value.
• If the galvanometer is connected to point p, the ratio of resistances
from n to p and from m to p equals the ratio of resistors R1 and R2
Kelvin bridge
Kelvin Double Bridge
Kelvin Double Bridge
• This circuit has two additional arms; hence, it is also known as the Kelvin double
bridge.
• The second set of arms a and b in the diagram connect the galvanometer points to
p between m and n. It eliminates the effect of the yoke resistance Ry
Kelvin Double Bridge
Kelvin Double Bridge
Kelvin Double Bridge
Kelvin Double Bridge
Bridge circuits- Applications
• A Wheatstone bridge is used in practice to measure resistance values from a few
ohms to few MΩ
• Strain gauge bridge circuits are based on the Wheatstone bridge
• The insulation resistance of a cable and the leakage resistance of a capacitor,
which are usually very high (few 100–1000 MΩ), are measured by a guarded
Wheatstone bridge circuit
• Kelvin’s bridge is used to measure resistances of very low values, such as the
resistance of the contacts, leads, and connecting wires
AC Bridges
• Maxwell’s inductance bridge
• Maxwell’s inductance capacitance bridge
• Schering bridge
• Wien’s bridge
AC Bridges
• Used to determine the value of unknown reactive components
• Used to fond the resistance, the Z, Y, frequency of the source signal, the Q factor
of a coil, the dissipation factor of a capacitor D
• Balancing of AC bridges is more difficult than DC bridges because both
magnitude and phase angle conditions have to be satisfied for balance
AC Bridges
General form of AC bridge
AC Bridges
General form of AC bridge
Maxwell Bridge
Used to determine the value of an
unknown inductance L in terms
of the known capacitance
Maxwell Bridge
Maxwell Bridge
Equating imaginary parts,
Maxwell Bridge
This bridge is used for coils with the Q factor
lying in the range 1–10 (1 < Q < 10)
If the Q factor is large, Rx is small. Therefore,
R1 in the balance equation (6.46) must be very
high.
Balancing the bridge becomes difficult. It is also
unsuitable for coils with Q < 1
Hay Bridge
• This bridge circuit is developed to overcome the limitations of the Maxwell
bridge.
• R1 is in series with a standard capacitor C1 unlike the Maxwell bridge, where it is
in parallel. This bridge circuit can be used for high Q coils with a Q factor > 10.
When bridge is
Hay Bridge balanced,
Hay Bridge
Hay Bridge
Schering Bridge
• Used extensively for the
measurement of capacitance,
particularly for insulators with a
phase angle of nearly 90º
• In the standard arm of the bridge,
a high-quality mica capacitor for
general measurements and an air
capacitor for insulator
measurements are used
Schering Bridge
Schering Bridge
Rx is the series resistance associated with the capacitor Cx.
Schering Bridge
Dissipation factor gives the indication of how close the phase angle is to 90o
