Emerson’s Paine™ brand designs and builds pressure and temperature transducers that operate in some of the most demanding conditions, from oil and gas wells thousands of feet below the surface to spacecraft traveling outside our solar system.
In an episode of the Oil and Gas Upstream podcast, Designing technologies that solve problems found both in outer space and thousands of feet underground with Emerson’s Paine Brand, host Elena Melchert spoke with Tom Hansen, Nick Thelin, and Jason Thompson of the Paine team about how those sensors get designed, validated, and built to last.
Why It Matters
Pressure and temperature measurement underpins safety and productivity across upstream oil and gas, subsea systems, and aerospace. When a sensor sits next to a perforating charge thousands of feet downhole or rides aboard a satellite, replacing it is either prohibitively expensive or impossible. Engineering teams need a supplier that can demonstrate that a transducer will perform under extreme pressure, temperature, shock, and vibration before it ever leaves the factory. The Paine brand has spent decades building that capability into a single facility.
Key Takeaways
- The Paine brand has been making pressure and temperature transducers since the 1950s, starting in aerospace and moving into oil and gas by the 1970s. It became part of Emerson in 2014.
- Most of the transducers are engineered to order. Process pressures reach up to 50,000 pounds per square inch (PSI), and operating temperatures span from minus 40 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Sensors are validated against pyrotechnic shock above 10,000 Gs and random vibration above 60 G root-mean-square (RMS), matching conditions encountered in drilling tools and rocket stage separation.
- Field life is measured in decades. The team routinely receives units that have operated for 30 years or more, and earlier-generation Paine transducers continue to function aboard Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which are outside the solar system.
One Brand, Two Extremes
Tom traced the business back to a Seattle-area company called Standard Controls, founded in the 1950s and later renamed after one of its founders. Aerospace was the original market, and the brand’s transducers have flown on Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and the Juno satellite orbiting Jupiter. By the 1970s, the same small, rugged pressure transducers were being deployed in downhole oil and gas equipment, including measurement-while-drilling tools. As Tom summarized, the brand’s sensors have traveled as deep into the ground and as far from the planet as anything humans have built.
Engineered to Order, Built On Site
Nick, the design engineering manager, described a workflow that begins with the customer’s specifications: pressure range, operating temperature, size, signal type, and environmental conditions. Designs are simulated in SOLIDWORKS, Cadence, and Ansys finite element analysis (FEA) before any metal is cut. Custom electronics cover analog outputs such as 4-20-mA loops, plus high-voltage and low-voltage options, and digital protocols, including Modbus and Controller Area Network (CAN). The machine shop and assembly floor sit about 30 feet from the engineering desks, so prototypes can be adjusted on the fly.
Jason, the manufacturing engineering manager, focuses on turning those designs into repeatable production. Material selection is central to that work. Inconel 718 is a workhorse for oil and gas applications because it resists corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement, the phenomenon in which hydrogen atoms diffuse into steel, making it prone to fracture. Various titanium alloys come into play for more specialized projects. Nick added a relevant design detail: the sensing element is a single integrated piece, so process fluid never crosses a weld or joint on its way to becoming an electrical signal. That removes leak paths in services where hydrogen would otherwise find them.
Proving It Will Work the First Time
Jason described two layers of testing. Qualification testing is performed once to demonstrate that a design meets requirements. Acceptance testing is performed on every unit shipped. Pressures span roughly 5 PSI to 60,000 PSI, with 50 PSI to 30,000 PSI as the standard operating range. Temperatures range from cryogenic conditions near minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit up to about 600 degrees Fahrenheit, with 425 degrees as a more typical upper limit.
Thermal cycling, mechanical shock, and vibration testing are all available on-site, supported by a shock table and a large thermal vacuum chamber. When a test exceeds local capability, the team draws on the wider Emerson laboratory network. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) and other metrology tools support failure analysis, down to the level of material composition and weld quality.
Listen and Learn More
For the full conversation, including the team’s perspective on perforating tools, drilling vibration, and the next generation of smaller transducers, listen to the episode. To learn more about pressure and temperature transducers engineered for the most demanding applications, visit the Paine brand section on Emerson.com.
