Wira Putri Winata

XII IPA 7
English Task Explanation Text
How Thermometers Work
If you look around your house, you will find lots of different devices whose goal in
life is to either detect or measure changes in temperature:
The thermometer in the backyard tells you how hot or cold it is outside.
The meat and candy thermometers in the kitchen measurefood temperatures.
The thermometer in the furnace tells it when to turn on and off.
The thermometer in the oven lets it keep a set temperature (hot).
The thermometer in the refrigerator lets it keep a set temperature (cold).
The fever thermometer in the medicine cabinet measures temperature accurately over
a very small range.
In this article, we will look at the different thermometer technologies used today and
understand how they work. You will also get to build your own thermometer
Bulb Thermometers
The bulb thermometer is the common glass thermometer you probably
grew up with. The thermometer contains some type of fluid, generally mercury.
!ulb thermometers rely on the simple principle that a li"uid changes its
volume relative to its temperature. #i"uids take up less space when they are cold
and more space when they are warm (this same principal works for gases and is
the basis of the hot air balloon $$ for more information, see %ow %ot &ir
!alloons 'ork).
You probably work with li"uids every day, but may not notice that things
like water, milk and cooking oil all take up more or less space as their
temperatures change. In these cases, the change in volume is fairly small. &ll
bulb thermometers use a fairly large bulb and a narrow tube to accentuate the
change in volume. You can see this for yourself by making your own bulb
thermometer from scratch. %ere is what you(ll need:
& glass )ar or bottle with a water$tight lid $ The lid should be the screw$
on kind and made from metal or plastic. I used a *+$ounce apple )uice
)ar. The )ar needs to be glass so that its shape does not change when you
s"uee,e it.
& drill or a hammer and a large nail
-ome silly putty, plumbers putty, caulk or chewing gum
& drinking straw $ + or ./ inches (about 01 cm) long, the thinner the better, preferably
clear
-ome food coloring (not re"uired)
To make your thermometer:
.. 2rill or punch a hole in the lid of your )ar. The hole should be as close to the diameter of
the straw as you can get.
0. Insert the end of the straw into the hole, and then seal around the hole with your silly putty
both on the inside and the outside of the lid. 'hen you get done, it should look something
like this:
.. 3ill your )ar with cold water. You can do this either by filling it with water and leaving it
in the refrigerator overnight, or by making some ice water in a pitcher and then pouring
the ice water into your )ar (straining the ice out in the process $$ all you want is water in
the )ar). &dd food coloring if you desire and shake it up. 4ut the )ar on the table to keep it
steady $$ you want the )ar filled to the brim with cold water, as full as you can get it
without overflowing.
0. 4ut the lid on the )ar as shown in the figure above. 'hen you screw on the cap, a little
water may spill out the sides, and a little water may be visible in the straw. That(s okay.
1. 4lace the )ar in your kitchen sink, plug the sink and run hot water into the sink until the
sink is about half full. 'atch the level of the li"uid in the straw and a very unusual thing
will happen: You will -55 the water in the )ar e6panding right before your eyes &s the
water in the )ar gets warmer, it will e6pand and rise up the straw. This sort
of e6pansion happens every day, but we don(t really notice it because the amount of
e6pansion is fairly small. %ere, because we have routed the e6panding water into a narrow
straw, it is much more obvious. 'e can actually see it happening.
'hat you have created is a simple bulb thermometer. &nd it works pretty well. If you
wanted to you could calibrate it, and it would tell you the temperature fairly accurately. This
particular thermometer has a few problems, however:
!ecause the working fluid is water, it cannot measure temperatures below 10 degrees 3 7 /
degrees 8 (the water would free,e). It also cannot measure temperatures above 0.0
degrees 3 7 .// degrees 8 (the water would boil).
!ecause the 9bulb9 (the )ar) is so large, it takes a long time for the thermometer to reach
the same temperatures as the ob)ect it is measuring $$ perhaps an hour.
!ecause the top of the tube is open, the water can evaporate and pick up dust and debris.
-ealing mercury in a small glass thermometer solves these problems. The small si,e
of the bulb means that the bulb reaches the temperature of what it is measuring very "uickly,
and the tube in such a thermometer is micro$fine. :ercury also avoids the free,ing and
boiling problems associated with water.
%ow do you calibrate the thermometer; Two common scales are used:
3ahrenheit scale $ 2aniel 3ahrenheit arbitrarily decided that the free,ing and boiling points
of water would be separated by .+/ degrees, and he pegged free,ing water at 10 degrees.
-o he made a thermometer, stuck it in free,ing water and marked the level of the mercury
on the glass as 10 degrees. Then he stuck the same thermometer in boiling water and
marked the level of the mercury as 0.0 degrees. %e then put .+/ evenly spaced marks
between those two points.
8elsius scale $ &nders 8elsius arbitrarily decided that the free,ing and boiling points of
water would be separated by .// degrees, and he pegged the free,ing point of water at .//
degrees. (%is scale was later inverted, so the boiling point of water became .// degrees
and the free,ing point became / degrees.)
&s you can see, the temperature scales we commonly use are completely arbitrary
You could come up with your own scale if you wanted to. The free,ing and boiling points of
water are nice because they are easily reproduced, but there is nothing to say that you couldn(t
use another scale.
Bimetalli !trip Thermometers
!ulb thermometers are good for measuring temperature accurately, but they are
harder to use when the goal is to control the temperature. The bimetallic strip thermometer,
because it is made of metal, is good at controlling things.
The principle behind a bimetallic strip thermometer relies on the fact that different
metals e6pand at different rates as they warm up" !y bonding two different metals together,
you can make a simple electric controller that can withstand fairly high temperatures. This
sort of controller is often found in ovens. %ere is the general layout:
Two metals make up the bimetallic strip (hence the name). In this diagram, the green
metal would be chosen to e6pand faster than the blue metal if the device were being used in
an oven. In a refrigerator, you would use the opposite setup, so that as the temperature rises
the blue metal e6pands faster than the green metal. This causes the strip to ben# upward,
making contact so that current can flow. !y ad)usting the si,e of the gap between the strip
and the contact, you control the temperature.
You will often find long bimetallic strips coiled into spirals. This is the typical layout
of a backyard dial thermometer. !y coiling a very long strip it becomes much more sensitive
to small temperature changes. In a furnace thermostat, the same techni"ue is used and
a mercury switch is attached to the coil. The switch turns the furnace on and off.
Eletroni Thermometers
It is now common to measure temperature with electronics. The most common sensor
is athermoresistor (or thermistor).
This device changes its resistance with changes in temperature. & computer or other
circuit measures the resistance and converts it to a temperature, either to display it or to make
decisions about turning something on or off. If you would like to build your own electronic
thermometer, check out %ow :icrocontrollers 'ork.
$uestions %
.) 'hat is the purpose of the te6t;
0) 'hat is the function of thermometer;
1) 'hat is the kind of li"uid that most of the bulb thermometer use;
*) 'hat should we do to make a simple bulb thermometer;
<) 'hat are the weakness of the use of simple bulb thermometer;
=) %ow do we calibrate the thermometer;
>) 'hat are the differences between bulb thermometer and bimetal thermometer;
+) 'hat is the principle of the work of bimetal thermometer;
?) 'hat kind of sensor does the electronic thermometer uses to measure
temperatura;
./) %ow does the electronic thermometer work;