Thank you to everyone who applied for the AX Control Scholarship.
AX Control, Inc is pleased to announce that Zaven Hamazaspyan is the winner of the 2020 AX Control Inc Academic Scholarship. This year’s scholarship is in the amount of $1,000. We chose the winner based upon the strength of a short essay. This focused on a personal account of an ambition he/she had to establish their own business, or of a small business that had impacted their life.
Due to the quality of the essays received, an additional $500 was awarded to a second student. The recipient of this award is Evan Rene MacLaughlin.
Thank you to all the students that participated in this year’s scholarship process. We received essays from around the country, including from students from Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Applicants also pulled from other competitive schools like NYU, Stanford, Duke, and Johns Hopkins.
This article will focus on the qualities of RTDs vs Thermocouples and their typical applications and principles.
Measuring temperatures in industrial engineering is a key part of monitoring the operation of the various mechanical, electrical, and electronic systems, determining their performance, and evaluating their health.
Likewise, in chemical processes, temperature and heat control may be crucial in achieving the desired end product. Additionally, the same applies to welding, heat treatment processes, industrial ovens used for plastic shrinking, and a wide range of other possible applications. That said, measuring temperatures is neuralgic in a wide range of engineering operations, and doing so with accuracy and precision is equally important.
While there are many types of thermometers that can be used for measuring temperatures including the familiar “mercury” thermometers, the bimetallic, and the vapor pressure thermometers, those that are most commonly and widely used in the industrial environment are the resistance temperature detectors (RTD) and the thermocouple devices. Both of these thermometer types have their respective advantages and drawbacks, and they are both suitable and valuable for a distinctively different set of applications.
Working Principle of Resistance Thermometers (RTD)
The RTD temperature sensor is based on the temperature dependence of the electric resistance of metals. As the temperature increases for metal, so does its electrical resistance. Of course, there’s an intrinsic coefficient of resistance for all materials, and a positive value for this coefficient makes specific materials better than others for the measurement element role. With nickel and platinum, for example, there is near-perfect linearity that is introduced by their respective coefficients, resulting in high accuracy and precision across repeated measurements. Moreover, nickel and platinum are generally chemically stable and extremely resistant to corrosion.
Despite a shrinking job market due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the manufacturing sector showed job growth in twelve states.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, US manufacturing jobs showed growth in twelve states.
Over 700,000 workers lost their jobs in March across all sectors of the economy; 34,000 of those were manufacturing jobs. While news of large manufacturing layoffs and furloughs like ones at GE and Boeing have sparked alarm about the strength of the industry as a whole, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows manufacturing posting significantly less than 1% job loss across all states. Twelve states, including Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Utah all posted gains in employment that totaled 9200 jobs during the month of March. Additionally, four states reported no job losses.
Data below is broken down by state and compared to February 2020 employment numbers. All data was sourced from the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Updated March employment numbers can be found in our next post regarding April unemployment. These numbers were updated and released by the BOL on May 22, 2020.
Manufacturing Jobs Data by State
State
Feb 2020
March 2020
change
% change
Alabama
270,400
272500
2,100
0.78%
Alaska
11,200
10900
-300
-2.68%
Arizona
176,900
177300
400
0.23%
Arkansas
159,600
158100
-1,500
-0.94%
California
1,306,600
1,304,500
-2,100
-0.16%
Colorado
150,500
149,000
-1,500
-1.00%
Connecticut
161,300
162,100
800
0.50%
Delaware
26,800
26,600
-200
-0.75%
District of Columbia
1,400
1,300
-100
-7.14%
Florida
388,100
389,100
1,000
0.26%
Georgia
402,000
401,100
-900
-0.22%
Hawaii
13,900
13,900
0
0.00%
Idaho
67,500
67,700
200
0.30%
Illinois
573,300
573,200
-100
-0.02%
Indiana
532,900
530,100
-2,800
-0.53%
Iowa
222,300
221,800
-500
-0.22%
Kansas
167,500
168,200
700
0.42%
Kentucky
252,200
251,700
-500
-0.20%
Louisiana
133,900
135,300
1,400
1.05%
Maine
52,300
52,100
-200
-0.38%
Maryland
113,700
112,500
-1,200
-1.06%
Massachusetts
243,000
242,800
-200
-0.08%
Michigan
621,600
619,200
-2,400
-0.39%
Minnesota
318,100
317,400
-700
-0.22%
Mississippi
148,600
147,700
-900
-0.61%
Missouri
276,300
274,600
-1,700
-0.62%
Montana
20,200
20,000
-200
-0.99%
Nebraska
99,000
98,900
-100
-0.10%
Nevada
59,000
58,400
-600
-1.02%
New Hampshire
71,200
70,800
-400
-0.56%
New Jersey
251,800
252,700
900
0.36%
New Mexico
28,800
28,800
0
0.00%
New York
436,600
435,800
-800
-0.18%
North Carolina
476,700
473,000
-3,700
-0.78%
North Dakota
25,600
25,700
100
0.39%
Ohio
700,900
698,300
-2,600
-0.37%
Oklahoma
137,600
137,400
-200
-0.15%
Oregon
193,200
192,300
-900
-0.47%
Pennsylvania
573,700
571,000
-2,700
-0.47%
Rhode Island
39,200
39,500
300
0.77%
South Carolina
258,400
258,400
0
0.00%
South Dakota
43,400
43,800
400
0.92%
Tennessee
354,100
353,900
-200
-0.06%
Texas
910,500
900,700
-9,800
-1.08%
Utah
135,400
136,300
900
0.66%
Vermont
29,300
29,000
-300
-1.02%
Virginia
241,400
240,100
-1,300
-0.54%
Washington
290,900
290,000
-900
-0.31%
West Virginia
46,200
45,800
-400
-0.87%
Wisconsin
477,600
477,400
-200
-0.04%
Wyoming
10,000
10,000
0
0.00%
Puerto Rico
75,300
75,000
-300
-0.40%
Virgin Islands
800
800
0
0.00%
Totals:
12,778,700
12744500
-0.27%
A chart showing manufacturing job numbers by state.
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