Experiments in Fluids 21 (1996) 38o-386 9 Springer-Verlag 1996

A new method for measuring time constants of a thermocouple wire

in varying flow states
S. J. Park, S. T. Ro

380

Abstract A new measuring method is suggested for determin- j junction of thermocouple

ing the time constant of a thermocouple wire to be applied for R reference point
the measurement of the true fluid temperatures in varying flow o~ surrounding
states. Based on the techniques of internal heating which are
commonly used to measure mean time constants, we extend 1
the existing method to measure instantaneous time constants Introduction
continuously. A method of measurement and analysis is In measurements of the transient temperature variation of
presented and verified experimentally. a fluid, fine-wire thermocouples are frequently used due to
their easy installation and low cost. In such a case, a problem
List o f symbols arises due to the thermal inertia of the thermocouples which
A5 surface area [m 2] act as the first order low-pass filters attenuating the high
c specific heat [I/kg K] frequency fluctuations. Every immersed probe possesses a
D diameter [m] finite mass and so requires a finite time to change its state.
h heat transfer coefficient [W/m 2 K] For a temperature probe, the heat capacity of the sensing
I current [A] element is characterized by its time constant z which is often
k thermal conductivity [W/m K] called the characteristic response time. In many cases, it is
L length [m] current practice to take only a mean time constant to com-
r resistance per unit length [f~/m] pensate the effects of the thermal inertia (Katsuki et al. 1987;
T temperature [~ Talby et al. 1990; Tanaka et al. 1990). However, the time con-
t time [s] stant of a thermocouple may fluctuate when the physical
tc characteristic time to reach uniform state [s] condition of the surrounding fluid is subject to change with
u velocity of stream [m/s] time. In particular, when the velocity of the fluid passing
V volume [m 3] by a thermocouple wire varies during the time of interest, the
x axial coordinate [m]. time constant is a function of the velocity. To measure the
instantaneous true temperature variation, the fluctuation of the
Greek symbols time constant should be considered. Indeed, the terminology of
c~ thermal diffusivity [m2/s] time constant is not appropriate when z is varying. Neverthe-
0 normalized temperature ( - ( T - - To~)/(TR-- To~)) less, since "time constant" has been conventionally used in
p density [kg/m 3] fluid mechanics and heat transfer for a long time, we will call
z time constant [s] z the time constant to avoid confusion.
co angular velocity [rad/s]. Some measuring techniques of the time constant have been
developed for measurement of the temperature of reactive
Subscripts flows and turbulent flames in combustion science. Lockwood
a amplitude and Moneib (1981) developed an on-line pulsing technique in
i initial condition which a series of cooling and heating histories are obtained by
repeatedly pulsing the wire with AC currents and the value of
z is obtained from the resulting rise or decay time of the wire
Received: 27 October 1995~Accepted: 11 April 1996 temperature. An advantage of this technique is that it avoids
the need to know the physical and geometrical properties of the
S. ]. Park, S. T. Ro thermocouple as it is necessary when the conventional re-
Department of Mechanical Engineering, sistance heating current technique, e.g. Ballentyne and Moss
Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea
(1977), is employed. However, since the time needed for the
Correspondence to: S. T. Ro wire temperature to decay or rise to a certain value is taken as
z in this method, it is inapplicable to the case that the condition
The work was supported by Turbo and Power Machinery Research of the surrounding fluid changes during the decay or rising. In
Center at Seoul National University and the authors are grateful to Mr. addition to this, it can provide discrete data only. These are the
M. H. Yang for his assistance in the experiment. limits of general internal heating techniques, too. The most
commonly used internal heating technique gives the mean time
constant from the forced convection decay of the junction
temperature after the removal of the direct-current overheating
pulse. Cambray (1986) contrived a new method using two
thermocouple wires installed at the same position by introduc-
ing an assumption that the ratio of the time constants for each
thermocouple is constant, regardless of the variation of the
surrounding condition. This method does not need additional
equipment except one more thermocouple wire and it is
possible to measure time constant and fluid temperature at the
same time. But, strictly speaking, the ratio of the time
constants may change during the measurement and it is
practically difficult to install two thermocouples at the same
position. Furthermore, this method tends to provide unstable
results when the time derivative of the temperature approaches
zero.
In this work, a measuring technique based on the internal
heating technique was developed. The basic concept of this is
similar to the resistance heating pulse technique, i.e. controlled
heating of a thermocouple wire by electric current and a
further measurement of its cooling history in free condition,
but the post process is different from the previous techniques.
The time constant is obtained not from the decay time but
from the time derivative of the decaying temperature. Because
this method can measure the variation of the time constant
continuously and is sensitive to the change of the surrounding
condition, it is advantageous in measuring the time constant in
hydrodynamically unsteady flows like pulsatile and oscillatory
flows. As a practical application, the time constants of the
thermocouple immersed to an oscillatory flow were measured
by this technique.
2 3
Principle of the technique
In general, a fine-wire thermocouple immersed to a fluid could
be regarded as a lumped body system due to its tiny size. Thus
the thermal balance of the thermocouple is merely given by
dTi
To~-Tj-=z d~- (1)
where Tj is the thermocouple junction temperature and Too is
the surrounding fluid temperature. In temperature measure-
ments with thermocouples, the junction temperature Tj is
obtained. The characteristic time constant is defined as
pVc
= - - (2)
hA~
where c, p, V, andAs are effective specific heat, density, volume,
and surface area of the thermocouple junction respectively,
and h is the convective heat transfer coefficient. Here,
"effective" implies that not only properties of junction but also
those of leads in the vicinity of the junction are considered,
If the physical properties of the thermocouple and the fluid
are kept constant regardless of temperature, the time constant
is determined by h only. The convection coefficient h depends
on the flow condition and the thermophysical properties of the
fluid. From Eq. (1), if Too and Tj are known, the instantaneous
time constant could be obtained by
/dTj
= (r~ - Tj)/~ (3)
Nevertheless, when the surrounding temperature changes with
time, it is nearly impossible to calculate z with Eq. (3) because
we can measure Tj only by a temperature measurement of a
fluid stream and Too remains unknown. However, if we accept
that the time constant of a thermocouple is dependent upon
the flow condition only, the time constant in the fluid whose
temperature fluctuates has the same value as that in the fluid 381
whose temperature is kept constant so long as the flow
conditions of these two cases are the same.
In the present technique, a cooling history is obtained after
pulsing a wire by a DC current under the condition of the flow
to be examined and a constant surrounding temperature. Then
the time derivative of Tj is calculated from the cooling history,
and the time constant is obtained as a function of time by using
Eq. (3). Thus the present technique can overcome the limit of
the general internal heating techniques. The time derivative of
Tj is always below zero until the junction reaches Too because
there is no more energy input into the thermocouple wire after
the heating by the electric current. Hence, this technique
provides a stable result unlike Cambray (1986). Nevertheless,
this method has some limits and drawbacks. For example, it is
not applicable to cases that the surrounding fluid velocity is
generated and/or influenced by the surrounding temperature
like a flame or a reactive flow, and the measuring time is
relatively short due to the finite decaying time of the junction
temperature after pulsing once. The latter can be comple-
mented by several continual runs of measurement.
One-dimensional analysis
The diameter of a fine-wire thermocouple is so small that the
heat transfer during heating and cooling could be analyzed by
a transient one-dimensional analysis. In the formulation, the
heating by the electric current can be replaced by a heat source
and the convective cooling by a heat sink. The model for the
analysis of the thermocouple wire is shown in Fig. 1. It is
assumed that the two materials are not mixed but contact each
other at the interface in the junction.
Ignoring the radiation exchange between the wire and the
surrounding, the energy balance equation is given by
?T ~2T 4
pc-~ = k ~x2 +-~ h ( T oo-- T) + ~ I g r (4a)
Tlt=o=Ti, ~T/~xIx=_LorL=O (4b)
where k is thermal conductivity, D is diameter, I is current
passing through the wire during pulsing, and r is resistance per
unit length. Its solution can be obtained by a numerical
method if the physical and geometrical properties of the wire
and h are known. Because a thermocouple consists of two
different metallic wires and the diameter of its welded tip is
generally greater than the wire diameter, the physical and
geometric properties of the wire are given by functions of x. In
addition, the equivalent values to satisfy the energy balance of
the control volume are taken as physical properties at the
 T= h Interface voltage of 12 V is imposed on the thermocouple and the wire is
6x Node
pulsed for 15 ms. As shown in the figure, the temperature
strongly depends on the material of the wire during and just
after pulsing the wire. The temperature of the constantan
increases rapidly during pulsing and decays immediately after
Ifv I r'.,-~-,-.,~
|
'1 t }}
nl i
Material1
L I
~I IU TI M aterial2
-'~'-'~
"}} I,
~'~
,
] pulsing. On the other hand, the temperature of the copper rises
\ ', !l! : . slowly compared with that of the constantan during pulsing,
Control ~ u n c t ~ o n and the temperature rise continues for a short period after
volume ~ x
termination of the pulsing which is usually called overshoot.
2L The temperature of the copper wire is almost uniform along
the wire and overlaps that of the junction. These phenomena
382 Fig. 1. Analysis model for a welded thermocouple are caused by the differences of the properties between copper
and constantan. The values of density and specific heat of the
two wires are nearly equal. On the contrary, the resistance of
250 constantan is much larger than that of copper by about 30
x, material
times and the thermal conductivity of copper is 16 times of that
200 . . . . 0.2mm, Cu of constantan. The differences of the thermophysical proper-
i. Pulsing
duration ...... 0.1 mm, Cu ties explain the rapid rise of the constantan temperature during
\
Junction the pulsing, and the heat conduction from constantan to
150
(...) 0.1mm, Co
0.2mm, Co copper due to the large gap of the temperatures between the
~- 100 two wires brings about the overshoot in the copper and the
junction just after termination of the pulsing. Since the tem-
50
perature measured by a thermocouple indicates the tempera-
ture of the junction (interface) and the junction temperature
also shows an overshoot, it seems very difficult to calculate
0
0 100 200 300 400 the time constant directly from the slope of the junction
t (ms) temperature. Lockwood and Moneib (1981) employed an
on-line pulsing technique but the effect of the overshoot was
Fig. 2. Temperature history at various positions near the ther- not severe because their thermocouple was S-type (plati-
mocouple junction in an isothermal stagnant air (analysis) - the
num/platinum-10% rhodium) which is commonly used for
temperatures of -0.2 mm, Cu; -0.1 mm, Cu; and the junction
overlap and they are not distinguished in the figure the measurement of hot gas temperatures. The physical
properties of platinum 10% rhodium including the resistance
are not so different from those of the pure platinum (Ra~njevic'
interface. Thus we can also consider the sharp changes of the 1987) and the pulsing duration selected by them is very long
properties at the interface. Although a 2- or 3-dimensional (500 ms) compared with this work. Hence the overshoot hardly
modelling of the junction could provide more precise results, appears in the junction temperature, and the time constant
the simple 1-dimensional analysis is more useful in view of an could be obtained without great difficulty. The long duration of
engineering application because the aim of this analysis is to pulsing tends to diminish the overshoot, but it causes another
investigate the internal heating technique qualitatively. The problem which will be explained in the next section.
implicit finite-difference scheme is employed in this analysis. To examine the applicability of the internal heating tech-
The correlation used to determine the heat transfer coefficient nique to a T-type thermocouple, the time constant obtained
is the following relationship proposed by Collis and Williams from the slope of junction temperature in Fig. 2 was drawn in
(1959): Fig. 3. The calculated time constant shows a peak at the initial
stage and converges to an asymptotic value after a short lapse
of time. In the same figure, the time constant of 83 ms is also
h D 0.24+0.56 (5) drawn, which can be calculated easily without internal heating
or pulsing for a given initial uniform temperature. This is
Here, u is the velocity of the stream and v is dynamic viscosity similar to an external heating method like laser heating
of the fluid. Although it has been established for steady-state technique. If the temperature history of the wire showed no
transfers, it has been frequently employed for pulsed-wire overshoot, the two time constants would be the same from the
techniques (Bradbury and Castro 1971; Mathioulakis et al. very beginning. Comparing Fig. 3 with Fig. 2, we can find that
1994). the time constant of the wire with internal heating begins to
The temperature variation of a T-type thermocouple wire approach an asymptotic value when the temperature difference
was examined through this analysis. The T-type thermocouple in the wire disappears. This indicates that the time constant
is composed of a copper and a constantan wire and commonly can be obtained by Eq. (3) so long as a finite time is allowed for
used in the range of -100~240~ The diameter of the the wire to reach a uniform state even if the overshoot appears
examined wire is 25 gm and the junction size is assumed to be in the temperature of the wire just after pulsing. The finite time
twice of the wire diameter. needed for the equilibrium is dependent on the type of the
The solution of Eq. (2) is given in Fig. 2. It shows the history thermocouple and the heat transfer coefficient. The finite time
of the temperature at various locations near the junction. The needed for a uniform state of the wire can be estimated with the
 250 70

200 Pulsing with DC _ 60

- - Uniform heating
50

g4o
100

50
\

-z=83ma--
b~

30

20
\ J
/ \ J
/
10 383
00 1 O0 200 300 400 500 0 n/2 n 3n/2 2n
t (ms) Phase angle

Fig. 3. Comparison of the time constant calculated from time de- Fig. 4. Variation of instantaneous time constant over a period in an
rivative of the junction temperature after pulsing with that in case of oscillating flow of 120 rpm (analysis)
uniform initial temperature and no pulsing (analysis)

110
aid of an analytic solution (Carslaw and Jaeger 1959) for two
m T ~

f
semi-infinite solids in which the initial temperature distribu- 100
tion is given by a step function and convection loss is ignored. Tj
Applying the existing solution of the temperature as a function 90
of time and location, it is easy to derive the time needed to
reduce the temperature difference between two positions near v
p-
8o f
the junction. It turns out to be
70 i

[ k2 -q-kl x~2 9 Compensated

~k2x//~l+k,x~22)
tcoc- _ _
where k and ~ are thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity
of each substance, respectively. The constant of proportionality
depends on the temperature difference and the distance across
the junction. In the case of the present problem, tc ~ 70 ms is
obtained for the temperature difference to be 10 % of the initial
between + 0.1 mm. If the convective heat transfer from the
solids is included in the analysis, the time is rather shortened.
For a verification of the present method in unsteady flows,
the variation of the time constant in an oscillating flow was
obtained by this analysis in case that the surrounding temp-
erature is fixed. The velocity of the surrounding fluid was
given by
u = ua sin cot
where co is angular velocity and ua is amplitude of u. In an
oscillating flow, the flow changes its direction periodically and
the time-mean velocity is 0. Because the flow condition of the
oscillating flow varies periodically in time, the time constant is
also a periodic function of time. However, if the oscillating
period is longer than the decaying time for pulsing, it is
difficult to obtain the entire variation of the time constant over
the full period since the time derivative of the junction temp-
erature becomes negligible before the oscillating period is
completed. Therefore, several calculations, each of which starts
at a different phase angle are necessary and the results should
be combined. Figure 4 shows the instantaneous time constant
obtained by 10 individual calculations when the oscillation
frequency is 120 rpm (2 Hz) and u,=2.04. Equation (3)
together with Eq. (5) were utilized to calculate the time con-
stant. It can be seen that the time constant has a peak when the
(6) 6O
with x in Fig. 4
o Compensated
with average -c
5O i
0 ~/2 n 3n/2 2~
Phase angle
Fig. 5. Comparison of the surrounding temperature with the
compensated result of junction temperature by using the time
constant in Fig. 4 under the same flow condition as for Fig. 4 (analysis)
speed of the surrounding flow is zero, i.e. at the phase angles
0 and n, and it has a minimum value at the highest speed.
For the validation of the present technique, it is essential
to examine whether the surrounding temperature can be
calculated from the junction temperature by using Eq. (1)
(7) when the surrounding temperature varies periodically under
the same flow condition. Figure 5 can provide the reply to this
question. In this figure, the solid line represents the arbitrarily
given surrounding temperature as a function of phase angle,
and the dashed line is the corresponding junction temperature
obtained by Eq. (4) without the term of current heating. The
solid circles denote the compensated temperatures with the aid
of the time constant in Fig. 4. It is found that the compensated
results coincide with the surrounding temperature. Although
the time constant in Fig. 4 was obtained under a condition of
a fixed surrounding temperature, it can be also applied to the
case that the surrounding temperature fluctuates with time.
Accordingly, this figure may be an evidence to confirm the
validity of this method. On the other hand, the open circles in
Fig. 5 indicate the temperature compensated with the average
value of the time constant in Fig. 4. It is shown that this
compensated result does not follow exactly the surrounding
temperature variation.
 10o The heating current is supplied by a variable-voltage DC power
supply and it is switched on and offby a SSR (solid state relay)
Dj / D 9 ,,//
o 1.0 " operated by the signal from the digital output in the personal
50-- computer. DC is used for heating in this work. The heating
9
m
2.0
3.0
f
current and the data acquisition are externally triggered by

/
Z a signal from the rotary encoder attached to the crank shaft
when the thermocouple is immersed to the oscillating flow. If

10
/ a trigger signal is generated, the digital signal from the digital
output switches the SSR on during a given pulsing duration so
that the heating current passes through the thermocouple and
then the data acquisition is done by the A/D converter. A few
384 5 milliseconds delay (1 ~ 5 ms) between the termination of
10 20 30 40 50 60
D(#m) the pulsing and the start of sampling is necessary to avoid
chattering noise associated with the termination of the heating
Fig. 6. Effect of the wire diameter and the junction size on the time current. On the contrary, in case of pulsing with AC, the
constant of T-type thermocouple in air stream of u = 1 m/s (analysis) chattering noise is reduced but it has disadvantages since it is
difficult to separate the temperature signal from the heating
current, and a more complicate instrumental system is re-
External trigger quired. The A/D converter is saturated during pulsing. Its
Co sampling rate is 1 kHz. The heating voltage and duration are
chosen according to the surrounding conditions.

Thermocouple 4.2
tip
Time constant in a stagnant air
Prior to the measurement of the instantaneous time constant,
Variable voltage the time constant in the stagnant air was measured. Figure 8
DC power supply
shows the temperature variations of the thermocouple junc-
,gger tion after pulsing for three runs with various voltages and
signal durations. The trend of each case on the whole is similar to
P

Heating others regardless of the voltage and duration. As investigated

current in the analysis, the overshoots are seen just after pulsing. The
D

Data overshoot becomes smaller as the duration increases because

acquisition
h
~l- Delay Time
Fig. 7. Schematic diagram of the circuit and operating sequence in
this work
An additional interesting result of this analysis is that the
time constant of a fine-wire thermocouple depends strongly on
the wire diameter rather than the junction size while the flow
condition of the surroiunding fluid is fixed. Figure 6 demon-
strates this result, where the velocity of the air stream is kept to
be 1 m/s. When the ratio of junction diameter to wire diameter
is fixed, the time constant is proportional to D s/3. It implies that
when a thermocouple is analyzed as a lumped body system, the
thermal inertia of the wires should be considered in the
modelling as well as the junction itself.
4 where TR is the temperature of the starting point. To avoid the
Experiment
4.1
Instrumentation
Figure 7 illustrates the circuit adopted and its operation se-
quence in the experiment. The thermocouple examined in
this experiment is a 25 ~m T-type thermocouple and its signal
voltage is fed to the A/D converter with amplifier in an IBM PC.
the time for thermal diffusion is relatively sufficient during
pulsing. Thus it appears advantageous to lengthen the duration
in aspect of reducing the overshoot. However, when the
duration is too long, the junction temperature tends to fluc-
tuate even though the wire is cooled in free condition. This
phenomenon is also seen in the experimental result of Lock-
wood and Moneib (1981). Furthermore, an excessively long
duration is apt to provide a greater value for the time constant.
It is suspected that the heat stored in the extension wire during
heating causes these problems. Therefore, it is important to
select the heating duration and voltage appropriately. To verify
the applicability of the resistance heating pulse technique to
the T-type thermocouple, the junction temperature in Fig. 8
was normalized and plotted on a semilog plane in Fig. 9. The
normalized temperature 0 is defined as
T - Too
0 - - - (8)
TR--T~
effects of the overshoot and the electric noise, 60 ~ 260 ms is
selected as the range of time in this figure. In spite of the
appearance of the overshoot in Fig. 8, it is found that the
junction temperatures exponentially decay within the selected
range of time and the three cases have the same slope indi-
cating the time constant. The time constant calculated from
Fig. 9 is 86 ms, which is 2 ~ 3 times of that of an S-type
thermocouple in the same condition. The specific heats of
 100
,00r 90

90
"-1~80~ 80 ~ . . . . . . . . . . -T-............... r~'~
~" ................-7[................

I
80
70 .................................. ~..................................... ~ ............................ ~ ...................................

70
~- 60 -~ ....................~-...................... ~--.~.............~......................
60
60~) ,50 '~"'~1 O0
50 50 ........................].....................................................]..................................
~ 7V-2OOms
40 ....... 10V-40ms 4O
9 14V2-0m~,_=,~=__. s
3O 30 . . . . 385
2O I I - I ....... V .......
200 400 600 800 1000 20 l
t (ms) 0 ~/2 ~ 3~/2 2~
Phase angle
Fig. 8. Temperature variations of the thermocouple junction in
stagnant air after pulsing for three different applied voltages and pulse Fig. 10. Instantaneous time constant of 25 ~tm T-type thermocouple
durations (experiment) over a period in an oscillating flow of 139 rpm (experiment)

piston-cylinders at each end of the tube of inner diameter

1.0
24.4 mm, and the oscillation frequency is 139 rpm (2.32 Hz).
0.8 The swept volume of the cylinder is 124 cc. The working fluid
in the tube is air at I atm, and the thermocouple tip is installed
0.6
at the centre of the tube. The velocity of the driving piston is
given by a sine function of time like Eq. (7) and the maximum
0.4 ' ~ fluid velocity (ua) is about 2.5 m/s. Since the time constant is
~D
~'~ "~= 86 ms
a periodic function of time, the measurement is performed
merely over a period. However, as described earlier, in the case
of low frequency oscillation, it is difficult to measure the entire
0.2
variation of the time constant during a period at once. In such
a case, several continual runs with measuring intervals fol-
lowing one after another should be conducted. Each run is
0.1 performed in a different period, and the results of the runs are
0 50 1O0 150 200 250 300 rearranged in one period.
t (ms) Figure 10 shows the result of a 25 lxm T-type thermocouple
in the oscillatory flow. The temperature of the fluid in the tube
Fig. 9. Normalized temperature variation of Fig. 8 (experiment)
is fixed during the measurement. The time derivative of the
junction temperature at a particular phase angle was calculated
from the piecewise curve fit of the data around that point. The
copper and constantan are greater by 2 ~ 3 times than that of early stage (35 ms after termination of pulsing) of each run is
pure platinum. Thus the thermal inertia of a T-type ther- omitted to avoid the effect of the overshoot. The cross marks
mocouple is larger than that of a S-type thermocouple. In Figs. in the figure represent the experimental data, and the line
8 and 9, there are small wiggles in the temperature variations 9 indicates curve-fitted data by the 10th order Fourier series
This is caused by 60 Hz noise through the wire and/or air. expansion of the data over a period. Because the velocity of the
Because such noise may cause a serious problem in the surrounding fluid varies nearly sinusoidally in time and the
calculation of the time derivative from experimental data, it time constant is influenced by the speed of the fluid, it is found
must be reduced for allowing a successful measurement. that the time constant becomes smaller as the speed of the fluid
Comparing this experimental result with the analytical one, is higher, and it has two peaks within a period. The trend of the
we can find that the time constant obtained by the analysis is time constant is similar to the analytical result shown in Fig. 4.
nearly that found by the experiment for the thermocouple in However, a difference is found in that the peaks do not appear
the stagnant air. Thus, it can be inferred that the analytical at the phase angles 0 and z~. This can be explained as follows:
model adopted in this study is useful for providing quantitative The velocity of the fluid is not an exact sine function of time
data although it is a simple one-dimensional model. because the oscillating flow is driven by the cylinder with
a crank mechanism. Hence, the flow condition of the reversed
4.3 flow may be different from that of the forward flow. Further-
Instantaneous time constant in an oscillating flow more, it is known that the velocity of the fluid at the center can
An experiment was performed to obtain the instantaneous be out of phase with the mean velocity in an oscillating flow
time constant of a thermocouple in an oscillating flow in (Simon and Seume 1988). The velocity variation at the center
a circular tube. The flow oscillation is driven by two tends to be delayed in a high frequency oscillation.
 ~--7-~- J J i , ,, constant during the measurement. The time constant is cal-
90 ....... 4 ..... ~ Measured - - - ~ culated from the time derivative of the junction temperature
[.~r....'~.. i - Compensated ,[ .... and the temperature difference between the surrounding fluid
] ~ " ! .; with 1:in Fig. 10 ,'/ . . " and thermocouple junction.
80 I-"............... -~-?. . . . . . . . . . . . . Compensated ....+/----." ........ It is shown that the magnitude of the time constant is more
! ~ ", . ! .
'•t " w,th averaged ~: ,/ ." closely related to the diameter than the junction size of a wire.
7o ........................ ........ J ................................ I - L - . " .............. Therefore, the time constants of a wire should be measured
F- i~\ " ! i q ." together with the wire size to apply for varying flow states. This
method may be useful for measuring the true fluid temperature
60
;,
............................................

I ~
....
.. ........
%
~ ................................

i oj
.o in an oscillating or pulsating flow.

386

I I
0 ~/2
Phase angle
Fig. 11. Measured temperature of an oscillating flow and the result of
calibration by using the time constant in Fig. 10 (experiment)
Figure 11 shows the temperature variation measured by the
thermocouple and its calibrated result by the time constant in
Fig. 10 over a period when the fluid temperature changes in
time and the flow condition is the same as the measurement
described above. Equation (1) is used in the calibration. In this
figure, the solid line is the result compensated with the fluc-
tuating time constant in Fig. 10, and the dashed line indicates
the result with the average value of the time constant.
5 convection flows. Exp Fluids 18:82-86
Concluding remarks
A method has been developed to determine the instantaneous
time constant of a thermocouple in a transient flow. Analysis
and experiment were performed to derive the necessary
working equations and to verify them.
In this method, a thermocouple wire is pulsed with an
electric current, and then its cooling history in a stream to be
investigated is sampled. The surrounding temperature is kept
I
References
rc 3~/2 2~ Ballantyne A; Moss JB (1977) Fine wire thermocouple measurements
of fluctuating temperature. Combust Sci Tech 17:63-72
Bradbury LJS; Castro IP (1971) A pulsed-wire technique for velocity
measurements in highly turbulent flows. J Fluid Mech 49:657-691
Cambray P (1986) Measuring thermocouple time constants: A new
method. Combust Sci Tech 45:221-224
Carslaw HS; Jaeger JC (1959) Conduction of heat in solids, 2nd ed.,
Chap. 2. London: Oxford University Press
Collis DC; Williams NJ (1959) Two-dimensional convection from
heated wires at low Reynolds numbers. J Fluid Mech 6:357-384
Katsuki M; Mizutani Y; Matsumoto Y (1987) An improved ther-
mocouple technique for measurement of fluctuating temperatures
in flames. Combust Flame 67:27-36
Lockwood FC; Moneib HA (1981) A new on-line pulsing technique for
response measurements of thermocouple wires. Combust Sci. Tech
26:177-181
Mathiottlakis E; Grignon M; Poloniecld JG (1994) A pulsed-wire
technique for velocity and temperature measurements in natural
Ra~,njevic' K (1987) Handbook of thermodynamic tables and charts.
Washington DC: Hemisphere Publishing
Talby R; Anselmet F; Fulachier L (1990) Temperature fluctuation
measurements with fine thermocouples. Exp Fluids 9:115-118
Tanaka M; Yamashita I; Chisaka F (1990) Flow and heat transfer
characteristics of the Stirling engine regenerator in an oscillating
flow. JSME Int J II 33:283389
Simon TW; Seume JR (1988) A survey of oscillating flow in Stifling
engine heat exchangers. NASA CR-182108