Lecture 12

Instrument Uncertainty
Resolution is the smallest physically indicated division
that an instrument displays or is marked.

Resolution = 1 mm

Figure 1: The resolution of a ruler.

Readability is the closeness with which the scale of an in-

strument is read by an experimenter. It is a subjective value
and does not enter into assessing the uncertainty of an in-
strument.
The zero-order uncertainty of an instrument, uo, is set
by international (ISO) convention to equal one-half of its
resolution. It is the smallest uncertainty that an instrument
can have. Thus,

uo = resolution/2 (1)

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 Design-stage uncertainty, ud, further considers the instru-
ment uncertainty, where
r
ud = u2o + u2I , (2)
with uI is the instrument uncertainty.
The instrument uncertainty is the composite of all of the
elemental instrument uncertainties, eis, where
v
N
u
uX
ui = e2i . (3)
u
t
i=1

The eis typically result from errors in

1. hysteresis
2. linearity
3. sensitvity
4. zero-shift
5. repeatability
6. stability, and
7. thermal drift
The equations for each of these errors in their dimensionless
form are on pp. 245-246.

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 Figure 2: The resolution of a ruler.

For example, hysteresis error, is expressed as

eH = eH,max = |yup ydown|max, (4)

where |yup ydown|max is the maximum absolute difference
between yup and ydown on the calibration curve, as illustrated
in the middle of Figure 2.
Each dimensionless error can be made dimensional by multi-
plying it by the F SO, the output at full scale (the maximum
output value).

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 EXAMPLE PROBLEM: A pressure transducer manu-
facturer states the following under accuracy data about their
0 in. H2O to 0.5 in. H2O pressure sensor/transducer.
Accuracy as RSS non-linearity, hysteresis, and non-repeatability:
0.14 % FS at constant temperature
Non-linearlity: 0.1 % full scale range output (best straight
line method)
Hysteresis: 0.1 % FS
Non-repeatability: 0.02 % FS
Thermal Effects (30 F to 150 F): zero-shift < 1 %
FS/100 F and span shift < 1 % FS/100 F

(a) Is the quoted accuracy for constant-temperature condi-

tions correct as stated?
(b) What is the total uncertainty if the environmental tem-
perature varies by 10 F during an experiment?
(c) What is the overall uncertainty in the pressure for 100
measurements under steady-state and constant-temperature con-
ditions estimated with 95 % confidence assuming that the manome-
ter used to read the pressure has a resolution of 0.2 in. H2O?

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 EXAMPLE PROBLEM: The manufacturer of the ADXL335
3 g accelerometer with a sensitivity of 300 mV/g provides the
following information under Sensor Input.
Nonlinearlity: 0.3 % of full scale
Cross-axis sensitivity: 1 % of full scale
Package alignment error: 1 degrees
Interaxis alignment error: 0.1 degrees
The accelerometer is connected rigidly to a beam and aligned
such that its y-axis is vertically downward. The beam is then
rotated to exactly 60 from vertical. Determine the % un-
certainty in (a) the angle and (b) the acceleration. Finally,
determine the overall uncertainty in g if the accelerometer out-
put voltage is read by either (c) a DVM having a resolution of
0.1 V or (d) a 12-bit A/D converter with a range of 0 V to 5 V.

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Temporal Precision Uncertainty
Even when an experiment is conducted under fixed oper-
ating conditions, a measurands signal may vary in time to
an extent. This is the result of uncontrolled extraneous
variables that change in time and affect the measurand.
This uncertainty is called the temporal precision uncer-
tainty. It can be estimated as

ut(x) = t,P Sx/ N , (5)
where t,P is Students t variable, which depends upon the
number of degrees of freedom, , and the % confidence, P .
For this case, = N - 1.
Students t variable is simply a coverage factor that fixes the
confidence limits (like k did before). Its values for various
%P and are given on p.196 and on the back, inside cover
of the text.
For N = 61 ( = 60) and P = 95 %, t,P = 2.000. This
is the same coverage factor that was assumed in the large
scale approximation.

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 EXAMPLE PROBLEM: An inclined manometer has a
stated accuracy of 3 % of its full-scale reading. The range of
the manometer is from 0 in. H2O to 5 in. H2O. The smallest
marked division on the manometers scale is 0.2 in. H2O. An
experiment is conducted under controlled conditions in which a
pressure difference is measured 20 times. The mean and stan-
dard deviation of the pressure-difference measurements are 3 in.
H2O and 0.2 in. H2O, respectively. Assuming 95 % confidence,
determine (a) the zero-order uncertainty, u0, (b) the tempo-
ral precision uncertainty that arises from the variation in the
pressure-difference during the controlled-conditions experiment,
and (c) the combined standard uncertainty, uc.