Performance requirements from pressure and temperature sensors especially for use in oil fields are very demanding. Several years of effort have been devoted to the development of a dual-mode thickness-shear quartz pressure sensor to meet such requirements. The objective of this effort was to develop a sensor with a pressure range of up to 15000 psi, a temperature range of up to 175 degrees C, a pressure calibration accuracy of 1 psi, and a resolution of 0.01 psi with 1-s counter gate time. It is demonstrated that the dual-mode thickness-shear quartz pressure sensor presented meets or exceeds these requirements. The pressure resolution is better than 0.01 psi at 1-s counter gate time. A significant advantage of the dual-mode design is its dynamic performance. An in situ measurement of the resonator temperature allows an implementation of an extremely effective dynamic compensation algorithm which yields corrected pressure readings with a response time as short as a strain-gauge-based pressure transducer while retaining the high performance of a quartz gauge under static conditions.
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