학술논문

Linear Variable Differential Transformer in Harsh Environments—Analysis of Temperature Drifts for Different Plunger Materials
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Sensors Letters IEEE Sens. Lett. Sensors Letters, IEEE. 7(9):1-4 Sep, 2023
Subject
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Robotics and Control Systems
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Signal Processing and Analysis
Sensors
Temperature sensors
Temperature measurement
Copper
Voltage measurement
Iron
Ferrites
Mechanical sensors
core materials
high temperature
large displacements
linear variable differential transformer
position sensor
Language
ISSN
2475-1472
Abstract
Linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs) are precise linear position sensors capable of measuring position over a wide range. The selection of the plunger material, whether magnetic or nonmagnetic, becomes relevant in environments characterized by high temperatures and temperature variations. Especially for sensors with larger measurement ranges, the sensitivity with respect to temperature increases. In this letter, we present an LVDT design for large displacements which offers a significantly reduced sensitivity with respect to the temperature. Our design uses a plunger made from solid copper. The proposed sensor design has improved linearity and lower temperature drift with respect to existing designs, e.g., sensors with ferrite based plungers. From simulations and experiments we demonstrate a temperature stability of $-$$28.5$ to $25.5 \,\mu \mathrm{m}\mathrm{/}\mathrm{K}$, which is comparable to other LVDT designs, which use further temperature compensation techniques. We further study the benefit of our design even for nonuniform heat distributions.