• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.17 no.4 s.107
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• pp.380-386
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• 2006

Electric fuel sender fur the vehicle fuel gauge system was designed and fabricated based on the CPW(Co-Planer Waveguide) transmission line theory. It is applied on this system that characteristic impedance of RF transmission line can be varied by the surrounded material of the line. By the characteristic impedance owing the level of gasoline or diesel fuel in vehicle fuel tank, CPW line has corresponding reflected signal as much as changed impedance. Detected signal is amplified, and delivered to fuel indicator into cluster unit on dash board. Conventional floating mechanical buoy level gauge has several defects as low reliability and high break down rate by mechanical operation, and has not good linearity for the fuel level difference. CPW line with electric circuits are constructed on 1.6 mm thickness epoxy substrate, and measurement shows that this system has more accurate level and better linearity than conventional mechanical system. New electric fuel sender which has good productivity with long lifetime and low-in-cost by the SMT chip assembling could be replaced this system with conventional floating buoy system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.121-126
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• 2001

Currently, potentiometric method has been employed to measure fuel amount for automobile. However, potentiometer could be malfunctioned or damaged due to the additives or dirt in fuel because a variable electric resistor is immersed in fuel. Therefore, a device employing strain sensor is designed and tested to verify the possibility as an alternative of the conventional fuel sender. Existing fuel tank has irregular cross section. Therefore, buoyancy is not increased linearly as fuel amount is increased. We design a floater that can compensate the irregular cross section of fuel tank and make buoyancy to increase linearly with increasing fuel amount. New fuel sender, comprising of strain gages on circular membrane, the above commented floater and the cover to prevent the disturbance due to sudden acceleration and deceleration, is designed and tested to replace current fuel sender. On the other hand, we are developing strain sensor that has strain gage deposited directly on the circular membrane with cantilever beam.