pressure measurements with piezoelectric transducer

[Darrell Norquay]

At 03:58 PM 8/14/96 CDT, Steve Ravet wrote in reply to Jerry Wills:

>| Are the transducers prohibitively expense, short lived, weird
>| calibration. What are the problems in dealing with these, or
>| are like lambda sensors, for us DIY'ers?
>
>The only ones I've seen are from Kistler.  They have pressure sensors built 
>into a spark plug, and ones the mount right in the head.  I don't know how 
>much they cost, but I think they are very expensive.  I'm sure someone else 
>here knows about them...

There is another company called PCB Electronics, and also Entran (I think).
Yes, they are expensive ($500), and you have to have fairly complicated
electronics package behind them.  Be aware that they are piezoelectric, and
are strictly dynamic pressure sensors.  You cannot measure static pressures
with them, which should not be a problem in this application.  

I've used these before in a flame arrestor test facility.  We'd fill a 30
meter long 12" diameter pipeline with a stoichiometric mixture of propane
and air and set it off, and test to see if the flame arrestor stopped the
blast.  It usually did... 
regards
dn
dnorquay at awinc.com