Vibrating strain elements: compensation and application

Most mechanical transducers can be represented reasonably faithfully as a second order system, if only because one pair of complex roots tends to dominate. This behaviour, depending on the circumstances, can be a help or a hindrance. Vibrating elements can be used as primary sensors for a number of physical variables (micromass, viscosity, pressure, temperature etc). They have the attraction that their performance is largely dictated by the mechanical structure, which is easily controlled. This is particularly relevant in thick film technology, which is cheap and robust, though not well controlled. The second order response is disadvantageous in many transducers as it delays the settling time before a stable measurement can be established. If this problem can be overcome, again cheap robust versions of devices such as load cells become available