AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course provides an operational understanding of the fundamentals of measurement, including methods of static and dynamic analysis, uncertainty assessment, calibrations, components, signal conditioning and the measurement of mechanical and thermal quantities. The necessary notions of probability and statistics are provided

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The students will learn the general measurement principles and the physical working principles of the main measurement instruments. The students will be able to choose appropriate instrumentation technology based on the description of process properties and performance requirements. The students will be able to select the proper circuits for conditioning and conversion of analogue measurement signals, to communicate about industrial instrumentation with specialists as well as system users. Furthermore, the students will be able to evaluate the reliability of a measurement result and analyse the uncertainty associated to a given measurement chain. Finally, the students will be able to deepen their knowledge about measurement systems and instrumentation by autonomous bibliography research on books, papers or specific periodicals.

TEACHING METHODS

The course is mainly structured in frontal lectures where the course topics are treated using slides and the blackboard. During the lessons, exercises and examples will be presented to facilitate the understanding of the topics. If possible, the students will carry out simple laboratory experiences.

All the course material will be uploaded on the course website using Aulaweb. Notes, slides, tables, spreadsheets and all the material available on the website is part of the course. Those students who do not attend the lectures are recommended to look at the website to check the communications and the course material.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

• Probability and statistics fundamentals: probability, random variables, variance and covariance, linear regression.
• General principles: measurement uncertainty evaluation, calibration procedures, dynamic behaviour of measurement systems.
• Sensors: elastic sensors, seismic sensors, strain gauges, resistance temperature detectors, thermocouples, capacitive and inductive sensors.
• Signal conditioning elements: Wheatstone bridges, amplitude modulation and demodulation, amplifiers, filters, effects of interference on measurements circuits and their reduction.
• Analogue and digital recording systems, basics of signal sampling and aliasing effect.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

E. O. Doebelin, Strumenti e metodi di misura, McGraw-Hill, 2008;

P. Bentley, Principles of measurement systems, Longman, 2005;

W. Dally, et al., Instrumentation for engineering measurement , Wiley, 1993;

A. Papoulis, Probabilità, variabili aleatorie e processi stocastici, Boringhieri, Torino, 1985;

A. Rotondi, P. Pedroni, P. Pievatolo, Probabilità Statistica e Simulazione, Springer, Milano 2005

A. Cigada, L. Comolli, S. Manzoni, Estensimetria elettrica, Città Studi Edizioni, Torino, 2010

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

MARTA BERARDENGO (President)

MATTEO ZOPPI

FRANCESCO CRENNA (President Substitute)

PAOLO SILVESTRI (President Substitute)

FABRIZIO STEFANI (Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

https://corsi.unige.it/en/corsi/11438/studenti-orario

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam consists of a written test and a possible oral examination (at the lecturer’s discretion).

The written test consists of several open questions and exercises.

The questions are related to both measurement fundamentals and physical measurement principles. The exercises are related to specific applications of measurement techniques (e.g. uncertainty evaluation, processing of calibration data, choice of the proper measurement chain based on the type of measurement that has to be done, the sensitivity requirement, the full scale, the frequency band etc.).

The possible oral examination consists of open questions on measurement chain components and, in general, on the measurement systems which are particularly relevant for industrial engineering.

Students with SLD, disability or other regularly certified special educational needs are advised to contact the instructor at the beginning of the course to agree on teaching and examination methods that, in compliance with the course objectives, take into account the individual learning requirements.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The aim of the written test is to:

• check the ability of the student in choosing the proper measurement chain for a given measurement application related to the industrial engineering field.
• evaluate the capability to analyse and evaluate the uncertainty associated to a measurement system, given the technical specifications of the involved components and the operative conditions.
• evaluate the ability to analyse the calibration data in order to highlight the useful information for a further use of the measurement instrument.
• evaluate the knowledge of the fundamental concepts of the measurement engineering, the ability of using a proper technical language and the knowledge of the physical principles of the instruments that are mainly used in industrial applications.

The use of open questions allows to check the knowledge and the capability of the students to properly discuss the topics treated during the course as well as the ability of using proper technical language. Moreover, the questions give the possibility to test the critical reasoning about the main measurement applications.

The aim of the possible oral examination is to deepen, if needed, the evaluation of the knowledge of the topics treated during the course and of the understanding of the measurements fundamentals.

Exam schedule