eHandbook: Level Measurement

Level measurement: what every process control professional needs to know 

Level measurement sits at the heart of safe, profitable process operations. It's one of the most misunderstood disciplines in automation. Get it wrong, and you're looking at overflows, cavitation, off-spec product, or worse. Get it right, and you unlock efficiency gains that ripple across your entire operation.

Control magazine's new Level Measurement e-handbook brings together expert Q&As, in-depth technical analysis and industry interviews to help engineers and operators in oil & gas, chemical storage, and pipeline operations sharpen their approach to level and related process measurements. Here's what's trending:

Differential pressure still trips people up. Even experienced engineers wrestle with D/P transmitter placement, calibration range derivation, and API compliance, especially in non-standard installations where seal pots, purging, or diaphragm seals aren't part of the design. 

Distillation column control is a level problem in disguise. Poorly tuned level and temperature loops cause slow rolling oscillations that can persist for hours or days. 

Small modular reactors are pushing coolant-level instrumentation into new territory. As SMRs move toward commercialization, engineers are asking hard questions about noncontracting gravity sensors, guided wave radar and heated thermocouples for coolant level.

Radar is going wireless and it’s reshaping logistics. Radar no longer needs to stay wired to a control system. Self-powered, cloud-connected radar units are solving the stranded measurement problem for remote chemical tanks and pipeline-adjacent storage.

Articles in this issue:

• Ask the experts: differential pressure missteps
• Best practices in column control, distilled
• Ask the experts: small modular reactors and sensors
• How radar enables “smart logistics”
• Resources