Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Determining the emissivity and temperature of building materials

by infrared thermometer
Hsuan-Yu Chen a, Chiachung Chen b,⇑
a
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego, CA, United States
b
Department of Bio-industrial Mechatronics Engineering, National ChungHsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

h i g h l i g h t s

A technique to determine the emissivity and temperature of construction materials.

The technique use an infrared thermometer and two contact thermometers.

The mean emissivity of seven materials was determined.

The range of emissivity we determined was similar to that in the literature.

The precision of the measurement is acceptable for practical application.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An infrared thermometer can be used to detect the temperature of materials not in-contact, in situ and in
Received 26 April 2016 real-time measurement. The set emissivity is key to obtaining the accurate measurement. In this study,
Received in revised form 26 July 2016 we investigated a novel technique to determine the emissivity and temperature of construction materials
Accepted 9 September 2016
by using an infrared thermometer and two contact thermometers. These measured values were
transformed into true temperatures by calibration equations to improve their measurement accuracy,
then the emissivity and temperature of the materials were determined by regression analysis. The mean
Keywords:
emissivity of seven materials was 0.937, 0.942, 0.944, 0.804, 0.802, 0.902 and 0.911 for black plastic,
Emissivity
Construction materials
polyethylene plate, red brick, paper, cotton cloth, wood and flat glass, respectively. The range of emissiv-
Infrared thermometer ity we determined was similar to that in the literature. The precision of the measurement is acceptable
Regression analysis for practical application. The method we developed is easy and inexpensive and could be used for other
materials.
Ó 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction tative results. Barreira et al. [4] evaluated factors affecting IR

The infrared (IR) thermography is a useful technique to access
building performance. It is used to access the insulation and leak-
age of heat and vapor loss through windows and leakage. The mea-
surement values are then used to evaluate energy conservation or
mold development [1,2]. The two approaches for measuring IR
thermography are qualitative and quantitative. Accurate measure-
ment concerns the quantitative method. Two important parame-
ters for quantitative measurement are the surface temperature
and emissivity of building materials. Avdelidis and Moropoulou
[3] introduced the use of the IR thermography for building
diagnostics and illustrated the importance of emissivity for quanti-
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Bio-industrial Mechatronics Engineer-
ing, National ChungHsing University, 250 KuoKuang Rd., Taichung 40227, Taiwan.
E-mail address: ccchen@dragon.nchu.edu.tw (C. Chen).
thermography of building materials and found that emissivity,
environmental factors and surface conditions needed to be
considered.
Two standard methods of emissivity determination are recom-
mended by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)
[5]. In the contact thermometer method, the target temperature of
the emissivity is measured with a contact thermometer and the
emissivity of an IR thermometer is adjusted until both thermome-
ters have the same temperature. In the non-contact thermometer
method, the surface-modifying material (SMM) is adhered to the
surface of the specimen to determine the emissivity. The emissivity
value of this SMM is set to the IR thermometer, then the tempera-
ture of the SMM is measured. The IR thermometer is focused on the
adjacent SMM and the emissivity of the IR thermometer is adjusted
until the temperature of the adjacent position is same as that of the
SMM. In this condition, the indicated emissivity is considered as

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.09.027
0950-0618/Ó 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
 H.-Y. Chen, C. Chen / Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137 131

the measured emissivity. Both methods are simple. However, where es is the target emissivity, T s the target temperature in K, T w
besides the emissivity of the target and emissivity setting of the the surrounding temperature in K; and T d the detector temperature
instrument, the accuracy is affected by surrounding temperature, in K.
detector temperature, and radiation reflection [6–8]. Moropoulou Saunders [18] proposed a modified equation by considering the
et al. [9] tested the emissivity of building materials with the ASTM effect of the emissivity setting of the instrumentation on measure-
standard [4] and the Madding empirical method [10] and found ment temperature,
significantly different results with the two methods. Ciocia and
Smeas ¼ ½SðT meas Þ  SðT d Þ ð2Þ
Marinetti [11] proposed a new method to determine the emissivity
of several construction materials with three types of boundary where T meas is the measurement temperature of IR meter in K.
tapes and two kinds of cameras with different wave-length bands. Combining Eqs. (1) and (2),
However, the authors did not compare the performance of emissiv-  
1  ed es  ed
ity measurement with that in the literature. Recently, some novel SðT meas Þ ¼ SðT s Þ þ ½SðT w Þ  SðT d Þ þ ½SðT s Þ  SðT w Þ
techniques have been proposed. Smetana and Reicher [12] used a
ed ed
laser beam to produce a heat flow and induced in a test body to ð3Þ
correlate with the emissivity of the body surface. Berini et al. where ed is the setting emissivity value of the detector.
[13] measured the radiation energy that was a function of emissiv- From the definition of heat radiation,
ity and surface temperature detected by an IR camera. Ianiro and
Cardone [14] proposed IR thermography with a multi-wave length SðT s Þ ¼ rT 4s ð4Þ
principle by using two IR cameras and measured the emissivity
Combining Eqs. (3) and (4),
and surface temperature of samples simultaneously. Albatici    
et al. [15] suggested an IR thermovision technique to measure 1  ed es  ed
rT 4meas ¼ rT 4s þ ðrT 4w  rT 4d Þ þ ðrT 4s  rT 4w Þ
the emissivity of six building materials. Monchau et al. [16] ed ed
reviewed three methods for emissivity measurements: calorimet- ð5Þ
ric method, reflectometry and a special integrating sphere for
reflectometry and then constructed a new device to measure the In this study, ed was adjusted in test procedures and was not a
emissivity of building materials by using a modulated IR source constant, T meas , T w and T d were measured by using the IR ther-
and camera. Araujo et al. [17] used the Monte Carlo method to esti- mometer and other thermometers.
mate the measurement uncertainty of the emissivity detected by
Y ¼ rT 4meas ð6Þ
dual spectral IR radiometry at room temperature and found that
narrow and short wave-length bands provided the smallest
A ¼ rT 4s ð7Þ
uncertainty.
Saunders [18] derived a serious of equations to consider factors
X 1 ¼ ed ð8Þ
affecting the target temperature measurement by an IR thermome-
ter at ambient temperature; the factors included the emissivity of
the target, the emissivity setting on the IR thermometer, the detec- X 2 ¼ rT 4w ð9Þ
tor temperature, the ambient (background) temperature and the
spectral responsiveness of the IR thermometer. X 3 ¼ rT 4d ð10Þ
Recently, the performance of the commercial IR thermometer
Rearranging Eqs. (5)–(10),
and contact thermometer has improved. The accuracy of these
thermometers could be improved significantly with temperature 1 X2
Y ðX 2  X 3 Þ  X 3 ¼ A=X 1  ð11Þ
calibrator and adequate calibration equation [19,20]. The previous X1 X1
equations of emissivity measurement [18] included system and
Let K1 = esA and K2 = es
random errors. The system errors from the detector and ambient
temperature could be measured and serve as variables in these 1 X2
Y ðX 2  X 3 Þ  X 3 ¼ K 1 =X 1 þ K 2 ð12Þ
measurement equations. The random errors could be assessed by X1 X1
regression analysis. This measurement and statistical technique
For the i measurement, Eq. (11) was denoted as follows:
provides an opportunity to simultaneously determine the emissiv-
ity and surface temperature. 1 X2i
Yi  ðX2i  X3i Þ  X3i ¼ K 1 =X 1i þ K2 ð13Þ
In this study, we developed a novel and simple technique to X1i X1i
determine the emissivity of seven construction materials by using
a commercial IR thermometer and two contact thermometers. The 1
Let Y 0i ¼ Y i  ðX 2i  X 3i Þ  X 3i ð14Þ
determination emissivity were compared with those in the X 1i
literature.
Eq. (13) can be rewritten as follows:

2. Material and methods

X 2i
Y 0i ¼ K 1 =X 1i þ K 2 ð15Þ
2.1. Theoretical background X 1i
Eq. (15) can be treated as a regression equation; the dependent
The measurement equations were developed by the heat trans- X 2i
value is Yi0 and two independent variables 1=X 1i and X 1i
. That is, Eq.
fer principle.
(15) is an equation without an intercept and includes two
S(Ti) is the response blackbody radiation at temperature Ti for
unknown constants: K 1 and K 2 .
the detector. Because the measurement target is not the perfect
In this experiment, the emissivity (X 1i ) of the IR thermometer
blackbody, the actual signal of the measurement, Smeas written as
was adjusted from 0.45 to 0.99, T meas , T w and T d values were mea-
follows [18]:
sured by thermometers and numeric values of X 2i , X 3i and Y prime
Smeas ¼ SðT s Þ þ ð1  es ÞSðT w Þ  SðT d Þ ð1Þ i
were computed, then K 1 and K 2 could be obtained by regression
132 H.-Y. Chen, C. Chen / Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137

analysis. The target emissivity es was calculated by the K 2 value Table 1

and the target temperature T s was calculated by the K 1 value. Specifications of three thermometers.

Items Infrared Thermocouple Pt-100

2.2. Materials thermometer thermometer resistance
thermometer

We tested seven materials of construction and building: black Manufacturers SI 20 LBE OMEGA ETI Reference
HH81A
plastics, polyethylene plate, red brick, paper, cotton cloth, wood
and glass. The photograph of samples is in Fig. 1. These materials Operating range 050 °C 60100 °C 18100 °C
Resolution 0.1 °C 0.1 °C 0.01 °C
are common used for construction and building. The emissivity
Response time 0.5 s 1s 1s
of these materials could be found in the literature and then was Accuracy after calibration 0.07 °C 0.15 °C 0.04 °C
used to validate the reliable of the emissivity determination tech- Signal indication LCD LCD LCD
nique develop din this study. Field of view 30:1
Emissivity range 0.31.0
Adjusted step of 0.01
a. Black plastics: made of low-density polyethylene, took from
emissivity
a 480 mm*180 mm black plastic bag. The thickness was
0.06 mm.
b. Polyethylene plate: made of high density polyethylene PE,
thickness was 2.0 mm, translucent. IR detector. A Pt-100 resistant thermometer was used to measure
c. Red brick: was used to make walls and pavements, size was the ambient temperature.
88*196*50 mm (L*W*H). The materials included silica (sand,
50%), alumina (30%), line (5%) and others. 2.4. Standard temperature
d. Packaging paper: white, 100 g/m2, made of wood pulp, pro-
duced by a modified surface pulping process. The standard temperature for contact thermometer calibration
e. Cotton cloth: brown, weight 150 mg/cm2, made of cotton and the black-body source for the IR thermometer were main-
material. tained by using a TC 2000 temperature calibrator (Instutek As,
f. Wood: cedar board, a light-weight wood, made from Skreppestad Naringspak, Norway). The uncertainty of this standard
Japanese cedar, density was 380 kg/m2, size was temperature equipment was 0.03 °C.
155*210*10 mm (L*W*H).
g. Glass: flat glass, density was 2500 kg/m3, size was 2.5. Calibration of thermometers
180*384*2 mm (L*W*H), the hardness is 470 HK.
The target temperature for calibration was maintained at 10, 15,
2.3. Thermometers 20, 25, 30 and 35 °C for both the IR and contact thermometers. The
calibration procedures have been described in detail for the IR
The specifications of the IR thermometer and the two types of thermometer [19,20] and contact thermometers [21,22].
contact thermometers are in Table 1. The IR thermometer with
the function of emissivity adjustment was used to measure the 2.6. Emissivity measurement of construction materials
surface temperature of the construction materials. The thermocou-
ple thermometer was used to detect the inner temperature of the The schematic of the experimental set-up is in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1. The photograph of samples.

 H.-Y. Chen, C. Chen / Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137 133

Fig. 2. The schematic of the experimental set-up.

Measurements were performed in a working chamber with The CV was used to evaluate the precision of the measurement.
environmental control. To avoid the effect of other light sources, The smaller CV value, the more precision measurement result.
the light level of the testing environment was maintained at
300 lx. The air temperature of the working chamber was main-
tained from 17 °C to 25 °C. 3. Results and discussion
A thermocouple wire (0.05 mm) was inserted into the inner IR
thermometer and the Pt-100 probe was attached near the testing 3.1. The calibration equations
material.
First, the emissivity of the IR thermometer was set at 0.45 and The calibration equations for the three thermometers are listed
the temperature of the materials measured by the IR thermometer in Table 2 [19,20].
was recorded. The detector temperature and ambient temperature
were recorded at the same time. Materials were measured three 3.2. Emissivity of construction materials
times.
Second, the emissivity of the IR thermometer was adjusted to The typical data distribution between temperatures and emis-
0.50 and the temperature of construction material, detector and sivity setting for the seven construction materials are in Figs. 3–9.
ambient environment were measured, then the emissivity of the
IR thermometer was adjusted to 0.55. The temperatures were a. Black plastics
measured sequentially with emissivity set to 0.95, 0.97 and 0.99. One regression analysis result was:
The temperatures of the three types of thermometers were
transformed into actual temperatures by the specific calibration y1 ¼ K 1 X 1 þ K 2 X 2 ¼ 394:377X 1  0:939751X 2
equations and examined by regression analysis. R2 ¼ 0:968; s ¼ 1:926
K 1 ¼ e  5:67  108 T 4sk
2.7. Statistical analysis e1 ¼ K2 ¼ 0:938
0:25
Ts1 ¼ ð394:3766=ð5:67  108  0:93754ÞÞ  273:16 ¼ 20:331 C
The emissivity obtained by the regression equation was further
analyzed. The mean value eave and standard deviation (SD) were ð17Þ
calculated. The coefficient of variance (CV) was computed as
follows:
CV ¼ eav e =SD ð16Þ
Table 2
Statistical analysis involved used of Microsoft Excel 2013.
The calibration equations for the three thermometers.
P < 0.05 was considered the criterion of statistically significant.
The mean value is the average value of several measurement. Thermometer Calibration equations
The comparison of mean and reference values was used to evaluate IR y ¼ 0:002706x2 þ 0:850415x þ 2:83401
the validness of this new technique. The standard deviation (SD) is Thermocouple y ¼ 0:99377x þ 1:14037
calculated from the each measurement and mean value. It repre- Pt-100 resistant y ¼ 0:99905x þ 0:18025

sents the diversion measurement result. The larger SD value, the y, actual values of thermometers.
more diversion of measurement results and the less repeatability. x, reading values of thermometers.
134 H.-Y. Chen, C. Chen / Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137

Black plastics Paper

25.0 25.0
24.0 24.0

Measurement temperature,
Measurement temperature,

23.0 23.0
22.0 22.0
21.0 21.0
20.0 20.0
19.0 19.0
18.0 18.0
17.0 17.0
16.0 16.0
15.0 15.0
0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00
Emissivity Emissivity

Fig. 3. Typical data distribution between measurement temperatures and set Fig. 6. Typical data distribution between measurement temperatures and set
emissivity for black plastic. The ambient temperature ranged from 21.34 to emissivity for paper. The ambient temperature ranged from 21.44 to 21.78 °C.
21.68 °C.

PE plate Cotton cloth

25.0 25.0
24.0 24.0
Measurement temperature,

Measurement temperature,
23.0 23.0
22.0 22.0
21.0 21.0
20.0 20.0
19.0 19.0
18.0 18.0
17.0 17.0
16.0 16.0
15.0 15.0
0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00
Emissivity Emissivity

Fig. 4. Typical data distribution between measurement temperatures and set Fig. 7. Typical data distribution between measurement temperatures and set
emissivity for polyethylene plate. The ambient temperature ranged from 21.66 to emissivity for cotton cloth. The ambient temperature ranged from 20.95 to 21.33 °C.
22.06 °C.

Red brick Wood, cedar board

25.0 25.0
24.0 24.0
Measurement temperature,

Measurement temperature,

23.0 23.0
22.0
22.0
21.0
21.0
20.0
20.0
19.0
19.0
18.0
18.0
17.0
17.0
16.0
16.0
15.0
0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 15.0
0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00
Emissivity
Emissivity
Fig. 5. Typical data distribution between measurement temperatures and set
emissivity for red brick. The ambient temperature ranged from 21.12 to 21.58 °C. Fig. 8. Typical data distribution between measurement temperatures and set
emissivity for wood. The ambient temperature ranged from 21.59 to 21.98 °C.

b. Polyethylene plate
The one regression analysis result was: c. Red brick
y3 ¼ 394:788X 1  0:95157X 2
y2 ¼ 322:191X 1  0:77105X 2
R2 ¼ 0:993; s ¼ 1:715
R2 ¼ 0:993; s ¼ 1:214 ð19Þ
e2 ¼ 0:771
ð18Þ e3 ¼ 0:952
Ts3 ¼ 19:315 C
Ts2 ¼ 19:836 C
 H.-Y. Chen, C. Chen / Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137 135

Flat glass 3.3. Emissivity of construction materials in the literature

25.0
24.0 The emissivity values of different materials from the literature
Measurement temperature,

23.0 are in Table 4. The emissivity from four sources were inconsistent.
22.0 For example, the emissivity of black plastics was 0.93, 0.95, 0.90
21.0 and 0.97 and 0.94 from OMEGA [23], MIKRON [24], Engineering
toolbook [25] and Thermoworks [26], respectively. The emissivity
20.0
from our study was 0.937. For red brick, the emissivity values
19.0
was 0.944 (this study), 0.93 from OMEGA, MIKRON and Engineer-
18.0 ing toolbook [23–25] and 0.90 from Thermoworks [26]. The emis-
17.0 sivity for white paper was diverse: 0.804 (this study), 0.93 from
16.0 OMEGA [23], 0.94 from MIKRON [24], 0.68–0.93 from Ther-
15.0 moworks [26]. However, the emissivity was 0.55 for paper from
0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 Engineering toolbook [25]. The literature showed insistent results
Emissivity for emissivity values of cotton cloth, wood and glass. Because of
the many factors affecting emissivity, one unique value cannot
Fig. 9. Typical data distribution between measurement temperatures and set
be used to represent the optical property of a building material.
emissivity for glass. The ambient temperature ranged from 21.09 to 21.58 °C.
The effect of errors of setting emissivity values on temperature
measurement was reported [27,28]. According to the IRCON Hand-
d. Paper book [27], a 10% setting error of emissivity would cause tempera-
y4 ¼ 334:900X 1  0:80466X 2 ture errors from 1.0 °C to 1.5 °C at room temperature. Alstyne and
Olson [28] found that with the measured temperatures within 1 °C
R2 ¼ 0:992; s ¼ 1:450
ð20Þ of the actual temperature, the emissivity must be set to within -
e4 ¼ 0:805 0.07 and 0.05 of the actual emissivity at 22 °C. Madding [10] men-
Ts4 ¼ 19:545 C tioned that the emissivity measurement uncertainties could lead to
temperature uncertainties. Ianiro and Cardone [14] proposed a
e. Cotton cloth
method to measure temperature and emissivity with the multi-
y5 ¼ 421:551X 1  0:7814X 2 wavelength pyrometer principle and with two cameras. However,
R2 ¼ 0:921; s ¼ 3:771 these techniques involved complicated and expensive equipment
ð21Þ
e5 ¼ 0:781 and complex methods. All tests needed to be performed in the
T s5 ¼ 20:481 C laboratory.
The results in this study showed the complexity of the emissiv-
f. Wood ity measurement. Moropoulou et al. [9] investigated the effect of
y6 ¼ 419:7964  0:89188X 2 temperature on emissivity values for several building materials.
R2 ¼ 0:949; s ¼ 3:170 Avdelidis and Moropoulou [3] mentioned that emissivity was
ð22Þ affected by several factors including temperature, surface condi-
e6 ¼ 0:892 tions, texture, composition and wave length. The authors sug-
T s6 ¼ 20:195 gested providing complete referenced emissivity values for each
g. Glass application. Musiolova [29] commended that emissivity was
depended significantly on many physical and chemical properties,
y7 ¼ 375:797X 2  0:89261X 1
so the accurate measurement was difficult. The factors affecting
R2 ¼ 0:978; s ¼ 1:643 emissivity values include temperature, roughness, surface clean
ð23Þ
e7 ¼ 0:893 conditions and degree of polarization. Even a common materials
T s7 ¼ 20:387 such as steel had different emissivity values in several data book.
It is not easy to establish the standard value of emissivity.
The emissivity values obtained in this study are in Table 3. The The performance of a measurement includes accuracy and pre-
statistical analysis of these emissivity data is in Fig. 10. cision. The accuracy is evaluated by the closeness of the measure-
The mean emissivity of seven replicate tests was 0.937, 0.942, ment to the true value. The standard of SI base such as length,
0.944, 0.804, 0.802, 0.90227 and 0.911 for black plastic, polyethy- mass, electric current and temperature have their standard values.
lene plate, red brick, paper, cotton cloth, wood and glass, The result of measurement system could be assessed with these
respectively. standard values. However, no international standard of emissivity
The CV value showed the precision of the measurement. Poly- determination could be found. The ASTM standard [5,6] is the pop-
ethylene plate had the best performance and wood the largest ular industrial standard and was used by researchers [3,7,9].
deviation of measurement. Researchers presented their determination results of emissivities
directly and no standard emissivities could be used for evaluating.
Table 3 Some researchers proposed novel technique for emissivity
Emissivity values for construction materials tested in this study. determination. Ciocia and Marinetti [11] used FLIR cameras and
their in-situ method to determine emissivities of black and white
Materials Mean SD CV (%)
papers, then results of two methods were compared. No reference
Black plastics 0.937 0.0131 1.40
values were used to evaluate the performance for their methods.
Polyethylene plate 0.942 0.0104 1.11
Red bricks 0.944 0.0142 1.51
Ianiro and Cardone [14] used stereo dual-wavelength IR thermog-
Paper 0.804 0.0134 1.66 raphy to measure the emissivity of gray and non-gray bodies. Their
Cotton cloth 0.802 0.0158 1.97 results were compared with the conventional IR camera technique.
Wood 0.902 0.0226 2.50 Albatici et al. [15] proposed an infrared thermovision technique
Glass 0.911 0.0166 1.83
emissometer to measure the emissivity of building materials. Their
CV, coefficient of variation. results were evaluated with the emissivity values from reference
136 H.-Y. Chen, C. Chen / Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137

0.95

0.9

0.85

0.8

0.75

0.7
Black plastic Polyethylene Red bricks White paper Cloth Wood Glass
plate
Mean+SD Mean-SD max min

Fig. 10. Statistical analysis of seven construction materials.

Table 4
Emissivity values in the literature for various materials.

Items This study OMEGA MIKRON Engineering toolbook Thermoworks

[23] [24] [25] [26]
Source
Black plastics 0.93646 0.93 0.95 0.90–0.97 0.94
Polyethylene plate 0.94164 0.95 0.92–0.98 0.97
Red brick 0.94408 0.93 0.93 0.93 0.90
Paper 0.80363 0.93 0.94 0.55 (any color) 0.68–0.93
Cotton cloth 0.80237 0.77–0.78 0.77
Wood 0.90227 0.8–0.9 0.89 0.885–0.935 0.90
Glass 0.91129 0.91–0.93 0.95 0.92–0.94 0.92

tables of manufacturers. Monchau et al. [16] performed the emis-
sivity testing of several materials by the indirect method used in
laboratory and the mechanical modulation technique used in out-
door environment. The results of two methods were compared
each other. No reference emissivity values of these testing materi-
als were reported.
The important performance for emissivity measurement is the
accuracy and precision. Because of lack of standard emissivity val-
ues, Albatici et al. [15] used the reference values provided by man-
ufacturers to assess their measurement results. In this study, the
emissivity values of different materials from literature were served
as the reference values to evaluate the accuracy. The precision was
assessed by the CV values.
ASTM [5,6] proposed two methods of emissivity determination.
In the contact thermometer method, the emissivity is affected by
the performance of contact and IR thermometers. In the non-
contact thermometer method, the measurement performance is
affected by the standard emissivity value of surface-modifying
method and the performance of IR thermometer.
In this study, the new technique was proposed. The contact and
non-contact thermometers were calibrated to enhance accuracy
with their calibration equations. The relationship between emis-
sivity, measurement temperature of samples with contact and IR
thermometers and the inner temperature of the IR detector were
established form physical principle. The target temperature and
emissivity of the sample were served as parameters of this equa-
tion. The data set of these measurement temperatures of two con-
tact and IR thermometers were collected. The emissivity and target
temperature of samples were calculated by using regression anal-
ysis. The more the collected data, the better the calculated results.
The emissivity determination was compared with the literature
and found the similar to these reference values.
An inexpensive determining technique could measure the emis-
sivity value in-situ and rapidly is very useful. The IR thermometer
we used is commercial equipment. It is easy to use and inexpen-
sive. With the help of the calibration equations, the accuracy of
the thermometers was improved. The emissivity and surface tem-
perature are easy to determine simultaneously by this method.
4. Conclusions
In this study, we developed empirical regression equations and
measured the emissivity of seven construction materials. The mea-
surements with an IR thermometer and two contact thermometers
were transformed into true temperatures by calibration equations
to improve the accuracy. The emissivity and temperature of mate-
rials were then calculated from parameters obtained by regression
analysis. The mean emissivity was 0.937, 0.942, 0.944, 0.804, 0.802,
0.902 and 0.911 for black plastic, polyethylene plate, red brick,
paper, cotton cloth, wood and glass, respectively. The range of
emissivity determined in this study was similar to that in the
literature. Here, we derived empirical equations to express the
relationship between set emissivity and three kinds of measure-
ment temperatures, then the true emissivity and temperature of
samples were calculated with these parameters by using regres-
sion analysis. The emissivity and surface temperature is easy to
determine simultaneously. The method we developed is easy and
inexpensive and could be used for other materials.
 H.-Y. Chen, C. Chen / Construction and Building Materials 126 (2016) 130–137 137

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emissivity value of building materials using an infrared thermovision
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