College of Engineering

Civil Engineering Department

Fluid Mechanics
CVEN212
Spring 2014
Experiment1
Calibration of a Bourdon Pressure Gage

Student Names:
Almothana Shahrour
Raafat Talal Hokan

ID: 201107562
ID: 201103033

Lab preformed at: 2014-03-5

Due to: 17 Mar 2014-03-12
Instructor: Dr. Osman Elnawawy

Introduction:
The dead weight pressure gauge calibrator is formed from a very precisely
machined piston and a cylinder it`s radius slightly bigger than of pistons, to
contain the piston which has a known cross sectional area. The cylinder is
mounted on a plate with leveling screws and the plate is supplied with a spirit
level to guarantee perfect horizontal alignment. The weight calibrator is
connected to a bourdon gauge calibrator. Bourdon gauge will measure the
pressure due to the effect of the weight on the piston, as the more weight
would be added the more the piston will drive downward in the cylinder which
will pump more water to the bourdon gauge calibrator and gives a higher
reading, and vice versa for each weight removal. The gauge her is subjected to
a known pressure because the use of standard weight, thus the Acquired
reading from the bourdon gauge can be compared to true pressure and error
can be determined. The objectives of this lab experiment are to calibrate the
bourdon type gauge using a dead weight calibrator pressure and to determine
the gauge errors relative to the calculated pressure.

Procedure
1. Get The weight of the piston and its cross sectional area .
2. Clear any trapped air in the cylinder by tilting the pressure gauge and taping on it to let all
the entrapped air out.
3. Filled the cylinder with water through the manifold connected. Its filled until its over flow.
4. Insert the piston carefully and spin it to minimize any friction effects.
5. Weights are added with increment, and after each addition gauge reading is taken.
6. After adding the last weight, weights are removed in decrement, and gauge reading is taking
again.

Equipment Required
-

F1-10 Hydraulics Bench.

F1-11 Dead Weight Calibrator.
Weights
Bourdon pressure gage.

Baseboard

Gauge Connection

- Specification
Mass of piston = 498g 0.5kg
Diameter of piston d = 0.01767m

Results :

Mass
(kg)

Calculated
Pressure (kPa)

Gage
Reading
(kPa)

0.498

19.92211165

21

5.410
51

5.132801667

0.998

39.92423179

40

0.18978

0.189420525

1.498

59.92635192

59

1.570088

2.498

99.93059219

98

1.545817
1.931933

Percent Gage
Error

Error

1.969992031

Error%

0
10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Calculated Pressure(kPa)

Graph (1): represent the calculated pressure VS eroor%.

80

90

100

110

Error%

0
10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

Gage Reading (kPa)

Graph (2): represent the gage reading VS error%.

Discussion:
From the last graph 1 and 2 we can see the accuracy of the gauge and the calculated pressure, as a
result from what we get the gage reading is quite good, except in the first reading which was a little
bet far from its true value where it had a 5.4% error. There are some factors that affect the readings
to vary from its true value such as; bubbles or air trapped inside the tube when the experiment is
done, the piston is not totally in stable condition during the value of gauge pressure is taken, The
size of the gauge error is extremely big with respect to the reference true pressure calculated. Is
the relative height between the dead weight calibrator and the gauge is important in the calibration,
because of the pressure are different on the vertical direction so in order to avoid any difference in
the pressure that happened inside the cylinder to the one read in the gauge, the heights of the
calibrator and gauge has to be equal.