INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ROORKEE

Temperature Measurement

CHN–210: Industrial Instrumentations

Outlines

1) Introduction & definition

2) Temperature scales
3) Methods of temperature measurements
1) Non-electrical methods,
2) Electrical methods,
3) Radiation methods.

2
Introduction

• Definition
– Hotness or coldness of a body or environment measured on a definite scale.
– Driving force or potential that caused the flow of energy as heat.
– Condition of a body by virtue of which heat is transferred to or from other body.

• Applications – nuclear reactor, chemical processing, pharmaceutical, plastic

manufacturing, milk and dairy product, plant furnace and molten metals, heating
and air-conditioning systems, etc.

3
Temperature Scales
• Common temperature scales: Fahrenheit and Celsius scales:
– These scales are based on a specification of the number of increments between freezing and
boiling points of water at the standard atmospheric temperature.
– 0F = 32 + (9/5) 0C
• Absolute temperature scale is based on the thermodynamic scale and is correlated with Celsius
and Fahrenheit as:
– K = 0C + 273.15
– R = 0F + 459.69 = (9/5) K

4
Principles for the Temperature Measurement

• The thermoelectric effect

• Resistance change
• Sensitivity of semiconductor device
• Radiative heat emission
• Thermography
• Thermal expansion
• Resonant frequency change
• Sensitivity of fibre optic devices
• Acoustic thermometry
• Colour change
• Change of state of material.

5
Methods of Temperature Measurement

Change in physical
state

Change in physical
Non-electrical methods
properties

Change in chemical
properties

Thermo-resistive type
Electrical Methods
Thermo-electric type

Radiation methods Pyrometers

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Bimetallic Thermometers

• The expansion of solids is employed in bimetallic elements by utilizing the differential expansion of
bonded strips of two metals.
• It comprised of two strips of metal such as invar and brass welded together, each strip made from a
metal having a different coefficient of thermal expansion.

• On heating the welded strip, the two metal changes length in accordance with their individual rates
of thermal expansion.
• The two metals expands to different lengths as the temperature rises.
• This force the bimetallic strip to bend towards the side with low coefficient of thermal expansion.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Bimetallic Thermometers

• If one end of the bimetallic strip is fixed so that it cannot move, the distance the other end bends is
directly proportional to the square of the length of the metal strip, as well as to the total change in
temperature, and is inversely proportional to the thickness of the metal.
• The movement of bimetallic strip is utilized to deflect a pointer over a calibrated scale.
• The deflection of the tip is small if the strip is short, and is large if the strip is long, since deflection
increases with the square of strip length.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Bimetallic Thermometers

• A longer strip can be contained in a relatively small space if the strip is wound in a
spiral, helix or multi-helix form.
• If the bimetallic element is wound in the from of spiral, the spiral is tightened with
increase in temperature.
• As it coils, the counter-post rotates clockwise, and thus a pointer attached to the
post also moves on a calibrated temperature scale.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Bimetallic Thermometers

• It consists of a tightly wound helical bimetallic strip located inside the stem of the thermometer with
one end fastened permanently to the outer casing.
• A strip is attached to a centre-post that extends from the stem to the centre of an indicating dial.
• A pointer is attached to the centre-post.
• With change in temperature, the bimetal expands and helical coil winds and unwinds which rotates
the centre-post.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Bimetallic Thermometers

Advantage Disadvantage
• Low cost, • Limited to local mounting,
• Tough, cannot be easily broken, • Change in calibration due to rough
• Easily installed and maintained, handling.
• Good accuracy and relative to cost,
• Fairly wide temperature range.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Liquid-in-Glass Thermometers

• Principle – with rise in temperature liquid expands.

• The expansion causes the liquid to rise in the tube,
indicating the temperature.
• It consists of a small bore glass tube with a thin-wall glass
tube at its lower end.
• These are used for the temperature range of –120 to 320 0C.
– When mercury is used as liquid, it freezes at –39 0C.
– For measuring very low temperature alcohol is used as
liquid.

Disadvantages
• They are fragile and not easily adopted to automatic
recording or transmission of temperature data.
• Sometime difficult to read.
• A large error may be introduced by changes in the size of
the bulb due to ageing.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Liquid-in-Metal Thermometers

• Works on the similar principle as of glass

thermometers.
• Mercury is used as liquid and steel as metal.
• Since mercury is not visible therefore a
bourdon tube is used to measure the change
in its volume.
• The capillary tube used is usually made of
stainless steel, as mercury will amalgamate
with other metals.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Liquid-in-Metal Thermometers

Since limitations of mercury, particularly at lower end of the temperature

scale, other liquids are also used in place of mercury.

Liquid Temperature range in 0F Equivalent scale in 0C

Mercury – 38 to + 1200 – 39 to + 650
Xylene – 40 to + 750 – 40 to + 400
Alcohol – 50 to + 300 – 46 to + 150
Ether + 70 to + 195 + 20 to + 90
Other organic – 125 to + 500 – 87 to + 260
liquids

Also known as filled system thermometers.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Gas Thermometers

• Principle – Ideal gas law: the volume of gas increases with temperature, if the
pressure is maintained constant; or
– the pressure increases with temperature, if the volume is maintained constant.

• If a certain volume of inert gas is enclosed in a bulb, then the pressure indicated
by the Bourdon tube, and most of the gas in the bulb, may be calibrated in terms
of the temperature of bulb.
• Nitrogen is generally used as it is inexpensive and inert.
– It reacts with steel at temperature above 427 0C and it does act it less like a perfect gas at
extremely low temperature.
• Helium is used for higher and lower temperature ranges.
• Gas has lower thermal capacity than a similar quantity of liquid, therefore change
in temperature response is faster than that for a liquid filled system with a bulb of
same size and shape.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Non-Electrical Methods - Pressure Thermometers

• Vapor-pressure thermometer (Principle: Dalton’s law)

– The system in the vapor-pressure thermometer is partly filled with liquid
and vapor of the same liquid, so that there is a vapor-liquid interface in the
bulb.
– There is no error as long as a free liquid interface exist in the sensing bulb.
– The scale range is usually of the order of 100 0C and accuracy is up to
1% of the differential range.
– The temperature is a logarithmic function of pressure, non-linear
relationship.
– The application is limited as number of liquids providing suitable saturation
vapor-pressure change.
• Liquids used in vapor-pressure system are:
– ethane, ethyl alcohol, ethyl chloride, methyl chloride, chloro-
benzene, toluene, pentane, ether, acetone, etc.
• Source of errors
– Ambient temperature effect, head or elevation effect, barometric
effect, immersion effect, radiation effect.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods

• Thermocouples,
• Thermistor,
• Resistance thermometers.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Thermocouple

• Principle – Thermo-electric effects.

– If two dismillar metals joined together so as to form a closed circuit, there will be two junction where they will
meet each other.
– If one of the junction heated, a current flows in the circuit which can be detected by a galvanometer.
– The amount of current produced depends on the difference in temperature between the two junctions and on the
characteristics of the two metals.
• Seebeck effect (1821)

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Thermocouple

• Instrument which records the variations in current flow are calibrated in terms of temperature and
are known as Thermocouple Pyrometer.
• Different types of thermocouples are: copper-constantan, iron-constantan, chromel-alumal,
platinum-rhodium, chromel-constantan, etc.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Thermocouple

• A thermocouple is usually comprised of a protective well and head across measuring junction to
avoid damages in pressurized systems or when measuring corrosive fluids.
• The measuring junction is connected to the voltmeter and reference junction with extension wires
(also known as compensating leads).
• The compensating leads should have the similar characteristics of measuring wires, otherwise it
leads to high inaccuracies.
• The voltmeter reads the difference between the measuring and reference junctions voltages which
can be calibrated to give temperature reading.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Thermocouple

Thermocouple without extension leads Thermocouple with copper extension leads

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Thermocouple
• Material characteristics
– Ability to withstand the temperature,
– Immunity from oxidation/contamination,
– Linearity characteristics
• Material is classified as
– Base-metal thermocouple (iron, copper, nickel, etc.),
– Rare-metal thermocouple (combination of pure metal and alloys of platinum or tungsten,
rhodium, molybdenum etc.).

22
Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Thermocouple

Advantages Disadvantages
• Rugged construction. • Temperature-voltage relationship is non-
• Inexpensive, linear,
• Wide temperature measurement (i.e., – • Sometime amplification is needed,
270 0C to 2800 0C), • For control application expensive
• No complex circuit, accessories needed,
• Good reproducibility, • Less use in the temperature range less
• Good accuracy, than 33 0C due to small change in
junction voltage with temperature.
• Easy calibration, etc.

23
Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• Principle – Change in resistance of various materials with temperature (in

reproducible manner).

 Classified as:
 Conductor (metal) – resistance of highly conducting
materials increases with increase in temperature (metallic
resistance thermometer).
 Semiconductors – resistance of semiconductor materials
decreases with increase in temperature (negative
temperature characteristics – NTC).

24
Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• Metallic Resistance Thermometer – Temperature Detectors (RTDs)

– Platinum, copper, tungsten and nickel exhibit small increases in resistance as the temperature
rises because they have a positive temperature coefficient of resistance.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• Metallic Resistance Thermometer – Temperature Detectors (RTDs)

– Platinum is widely used sensor and its operating range is from 4 K to 1337 K.
– For temperature range up to 600 0C nickel made RTD sensors, and
– For temperature range up to 300 0C pure copper made RTD sensors.

– Advantages
• high accuracy and long-term stability.
• wide operating range and have linear characteristics through out the operating range.
– Disadvantage
• low sensitivity,
• relatively higher cost,
• pronenes to errors caused due to contact resistance, shock and accelerations.

26
Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• Metallic Resistance Thermometer – Temperature Detectors (RTDs)

– Though platinum have low sensitivity and high cost as compared to nickel and copper, however
they are widely used for metallic resistance element –
• the temperature-resistance characteristics of pure platinum are well defined and stable over a wide
range of temperatures,
• its high resistance to chemical attack and contamination ensuring long-term stability,
• Most easily reproducible type of temperature transducer with a high degree of accuracy (0.01 0C up
to 500 0C and 0.1 0C up to 1200 0C).

– Variation in resistance is sensed by using either the deflection mode or the null mode.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• Resistance relationship for wide range of temperature is given by:

R = R0 [1 + aT + bT2]
where R is the resistance at absolute temperature T, R0 resistance at 0 0C, and a and b are experimental
constants.

• However over a limited temperature range, temperature resistance relationship is given by

R = R0 (1 + T)
where  is the temperature coefficient of resistance of material in (/ )/0C or 0C-1.

• For change in temperature from T1 and T2 is

R2 = R1 + R0 (T2 – T1)

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• Semiconductor Resistance Sensors (Thermistors)

– Thermistor – thermal resistor
– It is a thermally sensitive variable resistor.
– Compared to metals, thermistors responds negatively to temperature
– The coefficient of resistance is of the order of 10 times higher than that of platinum or copper.
– It is made of ceramic-like semiconducting materials, e.g. the oxides of copper, manganese, nickel, cobalt,
lithium and titanium.
– These oxides are blended in a suitable proportions and compressed into desired shapes from powders
and heat treated to recrystallise, resulting in a dense ceramic body with the required resistance-
temperature characteristics.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• Advantage
– a large temperature coefficient which makes the thermistor an extremely sensitive device,
therefore enabling accuracy of measurement up  0.01 0C with proper calibration.
– ability to withstand electrical and mechanical stresses,
– fairly good operating range which lies between –100 and 300 0C,
– fairly low cost and easy adaptability to the available resistance bridge circuits, and
– the high sensitivity and the availability in extremely small size enable a fast speed of thermal
response.

• Disadvantage
– highly non-linear resistance-temperature characteristic,
– self-heating effects which necessitates the use of much lower current levels than those with
metallic sensors.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Electrical Methods – Electrical Resistance Thermometer

• The temperature-resistance characteristics of a thermistor is:

  1 1 
R = R0 exp    − 
  T T0 

where
R0 is the resistance at the reference temperature T0 (K)
R is the resistance at the reference temperature T (K)
 is the constant for the given thermistor materials and varied between 3000 – 4400 depending on
the formulation or grade.

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Choice Between RTDs, Thermocouples, Thermistors

• Cost – thermocouples are cheapest by far, followed by RTDs

• Accuracy – RTDs or thermistors
• Sensitivity – thermistors
• Speed - thermistors
• Stability at high temperatures – not thermistors
• Size – thermocouples and thermistors can be made quite small
• Temperature range – thermocouples have the highest range, followed by RTDs
• Ruggedness – thermocouples are best if the system will be taking a lot of vibrations.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Solid State Temperature Sensors

• Silicon diodes and transistors exhibits a stable and repetitive response to

temperature.
• The relation between current and voltage for a forward biased PN junction is

VBE is base emitter voltage

Ic is collector current
kT  I c 
VBE = ln  Isc is saturation current
K is Boltzaman constant (1.38 x 10-23 j/K)
q  I es 
q is electron charge
T is absolute temperature (K).

• Generally the ratio of collector current to the emitter saturation current is constant.
• Base emitter voltage (VBE)  temperature (T)

34
Methods of Temperature Measurement
Solid State Temperature Sensors

• Advantages
– linear operating characteristics,
– excellent accuracy 1 0C,
– the sensitivity within its operating range (–55 to 150 0C) is of the order of -2 mV/0C, and
– output signal is high therefore no further signal processing is required,

• Disadvantages
– limited temperature measuring range, and
– the thermal mass limits the response characteristics.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Quartz Thermometers

• The change in piezo-electric crystal resonant frequency is directly proportional to

the temperature change.

• Advantages
– high linear output,
– linearity error is very small (0.5%) at full scale,
– long term stability and reliability,
– high resolution of the order of 0.001,
– excellent repeatability in the measuring range of –40 to 230 0C.

• Disadvantages
– limited measuring range, i.e., −40 to 230 0C,
– piezo-electric crystals have strong cross-sensitivity for pressure changes if they occur
simultaneously in the temperature measuring systems.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Radiation Methods (Pyrometry)

• Non-contact type of measurement

• The radiation emitted from the body should be sufficient intensity for measuring the
temperature.
• Radiation methods for temperature measurement are classified as:
– total radiation pyrometer
– selective radiation pyrometer, and
– infrared (IR) pyrometer.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Radiation Methods – Ferys’ Total Radiation Pyrometer

• Total radiation (both visible and invisible radiations) pyrometer receives a controlled sample of total
radiation of a hot body and focuses it on to a temperature sensitive transducer.
• Required an special optical materials for focusing.

• The principle of operation of total radiation pyrometers is that the rate of radiation from a body A
(the source) to a body B (the pyrometer) is given by the Stefan-Boltzamann law:


E A / B = C TA4 − TB4 
EA/B is the energy received by the pyrometer in W/m2,
C is the geometrical factor to adjust the relative shapes of the two bodies,
 is the emissivity of the detector disc which varies from 0.05 to 1.0 for the theoretical black body,
 is the Stefan-Boltzamann constant (56.7 x10-12 kW/(m2.K4)
TA and TB are the steady state absolute temperatures of the source and pyrometer detector disc.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Radiation Methods – Total Radiation Pyrometer

• Fery’s total radiation pyrometer

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Radiation Methods – Total Radiation Pyrometer

• Advantages
– used for measuring high temperatures,
– non-contact type of measurement,
– fast response speed,
– high output and moderate cost.

• Disadvantages
– non-linear characteristics,
– the presence of intervening gases, vapor and dust particles that absorb radiating frequencies
results into error in measurement,
– emissivity of the targeted materials affect the measurement.

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Methods of Temperature Measurement
Radiation Methods – Selective Radiation Pyrometer

• The principle of operation for selective radiation pyrometer is based on Planck’ law – the energy
level in the radiations from a hot body are distributed in the different wavelengths.

c1 = 3.740 x 10-12 (W/cm2)

c2 = 1.4385 (cm.0C)
c1−5  is the wavelength (cm)
W = c 2 / T
e −1 T is the absolute temperature (0C)
W is the energy level associated with wavelength at
temperature T (W/cm2)

• As the temperature increases, the emissive power shifts to shorter wavelengths.

• The classical form of the selective pyrometer is the disappearing filament optical pyrometer.
• It is most accurate of all pyrometers, however can be used for temperature measurement more
than 700 0C.

41
Methods of Temperature Measurement
Radiation Methods – Selective Radiation Pyrometer

• Disappearing filament type optical pyrometer

42
Methods of Temperature Measurement
Radiation Methods – Selective Radiation Pyrometer

• As the device is human operated therefore continuous recording or automatic

control is not possible with optical pyrometers.
• The accuracy is higher and less subject to large errors as compared to the total
radiation pyrometers.
• The accuracy is 5 0C for temperature range of 850–1200 0C and 10 0C for
temperature measurement range of 1100–1950 0C.

43
Instrumentation Design Problems

1. The power radiated from a hot piece of metal was measured by the radiation pyrometer and the
temperature is determined as 820 0C assuming a surface emissivity of 0.75. Later it was that the
accurate value of emissivity was 0.69. Find the error in the temperature measurement. (The
Stefan-Boltzamann equation is:

1/ 4
 EA 
T = 
  
2. It is required to design a resistance thermometer using a nickel wire of 0.02 mm diameter. The
thermometer resistance at 0 0C is to be 100 . How long the wire should be?
a) Resistivity of Nickel = 8.7 x 10-6 -cm at 0 0C,
b) Temperature coefficient of resistance 0.0068 0C-1.
Determine also the value of resistance at steam point.

44
Instrumentation Design Problems

1. A platinum resistance thermometer has a resistance of 140.5 and 100.0  at 100 and 0
0C, respectively. If it resistance becomes 305.3  when it is contact with a hot gas,

determine the temperature of the gas. The temperature coefficient of platinum is 0.0039
0C-1.

2. For a certain thermistor,  = 3140 K and the resistance at 27 0C is known to be 1050 .

The thermistor is used for temperature measurement and the resistance measured is as
2330 . Find the measured temperature.

3. A copper constantan thermocouple was found to have linear calibration between 0 and
400 0C with emf at maximum temperature (reference junction temperature 0 0C) equal to
20.68 mV.
a) determine the correction which must be made to the indicated emf if the cold junction temperature is 25
0C.

b) if the indicated emf is 8.92 mV in the thermocouple circuit determine the temperature of the hot junction.
45
Instrumentation Design Problems

• The radius of curvature of the bimetallic thermometer is given by

where t is the combined thickness of the bonded strip (t1+t2),

m is the ratio of thickness of low to high expansion materials, t2/t1,
n is the ratio of modulii of elasticity of low to high expansion materials, E2/E1,
1 and 2 are lower and higher coefficient of expansion,
T and T0 are operating and initial temperatures, respectively.

A bimetal strip was made of strips of nickel-chrome alloy and Invar bonded together at 20 0C. Each
material had a thickness of 2 mm and the composite element was fixed at one end with the other
end kept free. The length of the cantilever was 50 mm. Determine the radius of curvature of the
strip subjected to 100 0C. Take the following data of the material properties:
For Invar 1 = 1.7 x 10-5 0C-1, E1 = 1.5 x 105 N/mm2
For nickel-chrome alloy 2 = 12.5 x 10-5 0C-1, E2 = 2.2 x 105 N/mm2

46
Instrumentation Design Problems

• A mercury-in-steel thermometer employs a Bourdon tube pressure gauge which

has a range of 0 – 0.6 MPa for the pointer rotation from 0 to 2700. In the
temperature calibration process, the pointer movement was set to 00 rotation at 0
0C and the instrument indicated 250 0C rotation corresponding to 200 0C.

Determine
– The sensitive of the instrument.
– The error in the observed temperature values if the bulb is raised by 60 cm from calibration
elevation.
– The error due to the ambient temperature rise of 16 0C if the temperature bulb has 8 times that
of combined volumes of capillary and the Bourdon tube, and

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Thanks…

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