CLEMSON UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

ME 812 EXPERIMENT 1
CALIBRATION OF A T-TYPE THERMOCOUPLE

Shivuday Kala
Saiful Islam Tamim
Shoab Ahmed Chowdhury
Altamash S Baig
Sagar Dasgupta
Introduction:

A thermocouple can be any junction between two different metals and maybe used to measure
temperature. The idea comes from Seebeck effect which refers to the case when a voltage potential, or
emf, is generated in an open circuit due to a difference in temperature between the junction. This
occurs when there is no current flow in the circuit, which refers to an open circuit. But to do
measurement we have to have a closed circuit. Which introduces two additional effects such as,

a) Peltier effect: When we create a closed loop to do measurement, there is resistance due to
electron movement causing heat. Electrons absorb some heat moving to the lower density side,
producing a net cooling effect.
b) Thomson effect: This effect is due to a longitudinal temperature gradient along the conductor
such that there is a flow of current.

For a thermocouple circuit, all these effects may be present and may contribute to the overall emf of the
circuit. One method to set up thermocouple circuit is by using a reference junction with an ice bath at
0oC. The design is as follows:

Fig 1: Thermocouple temperature measuring circuit

It is better to calibrate this kind of thermocouple as high purity materials are very expensive. Also a main
purpose is to do uncertainty principle.

Objective:

1. Determining the temperature response of a T-type thermocouple.

2. Determine the calibration curve for the thermocouple over the range of 10o to 80o C with an
increment of 5oC to 10oC.
3. Do the uncertainty analysis.
Experimental Procedue:

Equipment:

1) Lauda RM6-RMS Brinksmann Refrigerating Circulating Bath

2) Omega TRC III Pelter Ice point reference
3) Leeds and Northod Potentionmeter
4) MINCO RT88078 Resistance Thermometer Bridge (RTD).

Fig 2: Resistance Thermometer Bridge (RTD) Fig 3: Potentiometer

Fig 4: Omega TRC III Peltier Fig 5: Refrigerating Circulating Bath

Procedure:

1) The ice point reference device is turned on and is set to 0oC.

2) The water bath is set to the required temperature with the help of control knob of the device.
3) The water bath is allowed to stabilize for 10 to 15 minutes.
4) The RTD is adjusted so the analog dial goes to zero. Using the resistance (ohm) from this device
the corresponding temperature was calculated.
5) The voltage (mV) of the thermocouple was measured by using a potentiometer.
6) Steps 2-5 is repeated for every 5oC step increase from 10oC to 800C. Then again temperature was
reduced from 800C to 10oC to get the readings for downstream.

Results:

Least Square Curve Fit for emf Difference:

A graph of E – Es vs Temperature is shown below. Where, E is the emf values of the thermocouple and Es
is the emf values of the standard thermocouple corresponding to the same temperature. E was obtained
from the Potentiometer corresponding to the temperature in the water bath and the temperature was
measured by RTD, Es was obtained from the standard tables using the temperature.

Fig 6: emf difference vs temperature graph

A Least square curve fit has been done for the emf difference (E – Es ) to find the best-fitting curve to a
given set of points by minimizing the sum of the squares of the offsets ("the residuals") of the actual
data from the polynomial fit. Here a polynomial fit of first order has been done using MATLAB curve
fitting app. The results of curve fitting are given below:

Model: Linear model Poly 1:

f(x) = a1*x + a2
Coefficients (with 95% confidence bounds):
a1 = 0.0002366
a2 = 0.01109
Goodness of fit:
SSE: 0.0001427
R-Square: 0.8365
Adjusted R-Square: 0.8307
RMSE: 0.002258
The curve fitted line equation: (E – Es ) = 0.0002366*T + 0.01109
The value of the correlation coefficient R-Square, is indicative of how well variance in y is accounted for
by the fit. A linear regression can be considered a reliable relation between y and x if R-square > 0.8.
Since the R-Square = 0.8365 for our curve fit so the linear regression is a good fit.
The curve fitted graph is presented below:

Fig 7: Least Square Curve Fit for the Entire Data Set
Uncertainty Analysis:

Errors are a property of the measurement. The uncertainty describes an interval about the about the
measured value within which we suspect that the true value must fall with a stated probability.
Uncertainty analysis is the process of identifying, quantifying, and combining the errors. Errors are
effects, and uncertainties are numbers.
Uncertainty analysis of the uncertainties associated with the curve fitting, RTD, temperature source, ice
point and potentiometer has been performed in the next part.
Curve Fitting Uncertainty:

Uncertainty of random data scatter:

𝑆𝑦𝑥
±𝑡𝜈,𝑃 (𝑃%)
√𝑁
Where,
𝜈 is the degrees of freedom
N is the number of data points
M is the order of polynomial
P is the confidence level
tv,p is the Student t-distribution
∑𝑁
𝑖=1(𝑦𝑖 −𝑦𝑐𝑖 )
2
Syx is the standard error of the fit = √ 𝜈

The Student t-distribution is a probability distribution chart that is used when the population size is less
than or equal to 30 or when the population variance is unknown. The t distribution allows us to conduct
statistical analyses on certain data sets that are not appropriate for analysis, using the normal
distribution.

Implementing the method outlined above,

𝑁 = 𝑁𝑢𝑝𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 + 𝑁𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 = 15 + 15 = 30

𝜈 = 𝑁 − (𝑚 + 1) = 30 − (1 + 1) = 28

∑𝑁 (𝑦𝑖 − 𝑦𝑐𝑖 )2
𝑆𝑦𝑥 = √ 𝑖=1 = 0.002256296
𝜈

𝑆𝑦𝑥
𝑦𝑐 ± 𝑡28,0.025
√𝑁
𝑆𝑦𝑥 0.002256296
𝑢𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑡,𝐸−𝐸𝑠 = 𝑡28,0.025 = 2.0496 = 0.000844 𝑚𝑉
√𝑁 √30

The RTD resolution is in Ohms while our uncertainties values are in mV, hence we need to find a
relationship between the RTD readings and corresponding temperatures. This is done by fitting a curve
to the measured RTD values as shown above.
Potentiometer Uncertainty

The uncertainty associated with potentiometer is calculated as,

𝑢𝑑 = √𝑢02 + 𝑢𝑐2 (𝑃%)

u0 = Zeroth order uncertainty of device

1
𝑢0 = ± 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (95%)
2

Resolution of Potentiometer = 0.001 mV

𝑢0 = 0.0005 𝑚𝑉

Instrument uncertainty is calculated as,

𝑢𝑥 = √𝑢12 + 𝑢22 + ⋯ + 𝑢𝑘2

= √∑𝑘𝑘=1 𝑢𝑘2 (P%)

Where uk are the individual elemental errors

𝑢1 = 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑦 (0.01 𝑚𝑉)

𝑢2 = 𝐼𝑛𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 (0.001 𝑚𝑉)
Accuracy of an instrument can be defined as the amount of uncertainty in a measurement with respect
to an absolute standard.

Total Uncertainty for Potentiometer is

𝑢𝑑 = √𝑢12 + 𝑢22 + 𝑢02

∴ 𝑢𝑑 = 0.010062306 𝑚𝑉

Ice Point Uncertainty

To calculate uncertainties associated with this device you just need the error associated with it since an
ice point device won’t have a zeroth order uncertainty.

𝑈𝑑 = 𝑈𝑐 = 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑦 = 0.1 𝐶𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑖𝑢𝑠

To convert this to mV, again multiply it by change in voltage with unit temperature.
𝑉 𝑚𝑉
𝑢𝑑 (𝑚𝑉) = 𝑢𝑑 (°𝐶) ∗ ( )
𝑇 °𝐶

Resistance Thermometer Uncertainty

The uncertainty associated with the resistance thermometer is calculated as,

𝑢𝑑 = √𝑢02 + 𝑢𝑐2 (𝑃%)

Where u0 = zero order uncertainty of the device

1
𝑢0 = ± 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (95%)
2
For this device,

𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 0.01 Ω
𝑢0 = 0.005 Ω
𝑢𝑐 = 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑦 = 0
∴ 𝑢𝑑 = 𝑢𝑐 = 0.005 Ω
𝑢𝑐 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑧𝑒𝑟𝑜 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒.
Ud needs to be converted from ohms to mV,
𝑉 𝑚𝑉 𝑇 °𝐶
𝑢𝑑 (𝑚𝑉) = 𝑢𝑑 (𝑂ℎ𝑚) ∗ ( )∗ ( )
𝑇 °𝐶 𝑅 𝑂ℎ𝑚
Heat Source Uncertainty

The uncertainty associated with the resistance thermometer is calculated as,

𝑢𝑑 = √𝑢02 + 𝑢𝑐2 (𝑃%)

Where u0 = zero order uncertainty of the device

1
𝑢0 = ± 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (95%)
2

For this device,

𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 0.3 °𝐶
 𝑢0 = 0.15 °𝐶
𝑢𝑐 = 0, 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒
∴ 𝑢𝑑 = 𝑢0 = 0.15 °𝐶
Ud needs to be converted from ohms to mV, this is done in the below table by multiplying the uncertainty
with the voltage change per unit temperature change.
𝑉 𝑚𝑉
𝑢𝑑 (𝑚𝑉) = 𝑢𝑑 (°𝐶) ∗ ( )
𝑇 °𝐶
Final Uncertainty

With the help of root-sum-squares (RSS) method, the total uncertainty can be calculated,

𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = ±√∑𝐾 2
𝑘=1 𝑒𝐾 (P%)

The above equation can be written as follows:

2 2 2 2 2
𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = √𝑢𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝐹𝑖𝑡 + 𝑢𝑃𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟 + 𝑢𝑅𝑇𝐷 + 𝑢𝐼𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 + 𝑢𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒

From the above equation the values of the below table are obtained.

Final
Temperature
Uncertainty

10 0.012458
15 0.012445
20 0.012439
25 0.012454
30 0.012463
35 0.012482
40 0.0125
45 0.012518
50 0.012536
55 0.012556
60 0.012573
65 0.012599
70 0.012616
75 0.012632
80 0.012653
Using the above data along with the curve fit and the standard thermocouple emf data we obtain the
below table of thermocouple emf for different temperatures

Temperature Thermocouple Uncertainty

(°C) EMF (mV) (mV)

10 0.422 0.012457801
20 0.859 0.012439158
30 1.249 0.012462756
40 1.633 0.012500152
50 2.051 0.012536077
60 2.453 0.012573325
70 2.911 0.012615966
80 3.32 0.012653149

Conclusion:

The outcomes of the following experiment are:

1. The final calibration curve over a temperature range of 10-80C as the dependent variable and
thermocouple EMF as the independent variable was generated.
2. The final calibration curve showed the deviation of the calibrated thermocouple to the standard
thermocouple to be following a linear trend.
3. Uncertainty analysis was performed to quantify the error in the calibration.

Reference:

1. Figliola, R. S.; Beasley, D. E. Theory and Design for Mechanical Measurements; John Wiley &
Sons: New York
Appendix:

Attached is the raw data obtained from the readings used to conduct the above experiment.
Water Bath Actual RTD (Ω) Obtained Reference Difference
Temperature Temperature EMF (E) EMF (Es) (E-Es)
(°C) (°C) (mv) (mv) (mv)
Downscale

80 78.61 130.96 3.325 3.2946 75.3154

75 73.01 128.78 3.068 3.0430 69.9670
70 68.91 127.18 2.886 2.8600 66.0500
65 63.277 124.98 2.635 2.6115 60.6655
60 58.089 122.95 2.406 2.3844 55.7046
55 53.801 121.27 2.219 2.1992 51.6018
50 49.112 119.43 2.017 1.9973 47.1147
45 44.480 117.61 1.82 1.8009 42.6791
40 39.372 115.6 1.605 1.5849 37.7871
35 34.779 113.79 1.411 1.3943 33.3847
30 29.864 111.85 1.207 1.1900 28.6740
25 25.664 110.19 1.035 1.019 24.6450
20 20.661 108.21 0.832 0.816 19.8450
15 14.457 105.75 0.582 0.5684 13.8886
10 10.427 104.15 0.422 0.408 10.0190
Upscale

10 10.427 104.15 0.422 0.408 10.0190

15 15.540 106.18 0.627 0.6115 14.9285
20 21.318 108.47 0.859 0.8426 20.4754
25 25.992 110.32 1.051 1.0329 24.9591
30 30.826 112.23 1.249 1.2303 29.5957
35 35.261 113.98 1.435 1.4143 33.8467
40 39.956 115.83 1.633 1.6092 38.3468
45 44.912 117.78 1.843 1.8193 43.0927
50 49.774 119.69 2.051 2.0254 47.7486
55 54.387 121.5 2.251 2.2245 52.1625
60 59.033 123.32 2.453 2.4252 56.6078
65 64.007 125.28 2.675 2.6437 61.3633
70 69.396 127.37 2.911 2.8814 66.5146
75 73.473 128.96 3.093 3.064 70.4090
80 78.506 130.92 3.32 3.2899 75.2161

Table 1: Ice Point Uncertainty for various temperatures

 Uncertainty of
Temperature
Ice Point

10 0.004047185
15 0.004034749
20 0.004029459
25 0.004043552
30 0.004051774
35 0.004069652
40 0.004086996
45 0.00410358
50 0.004120625
55 0.004138857
60 0.004155303
65 0.00417923
70 0.004194766
75 0.00420971
80 0.004228976

Table 2: Resistance Thermometer Uncertainty for various temperatures

Uncertainty of
Temperature
RTD (mV)

10 2.02592E-05
15 2.95253E-05
20 3.95962E-05
25 4.76342E-05
30 5.56447E-05
35 6.29496E-05
40 7.04912E-05
45 7.82391E-05
50 8.56797E-05
55 9.26337E-05
60 9.94567E-05
65 0.000106761
70 0.000114273
75 0.000119921
80 0.000126795
Table 3: Temperature Source Uncertainty for different temperatures

Uncertainty of
Temperature Temperature
Source
10 0.006070778
15 0.006052124
20 0.006044188
25 0.006065328
30 0.006077662
35 0.006104478
40 0.006130494
45 0.006155371
50 0.006180938
55 0.006208285
60 0.006232954
65 0.006268846
70 0.006292149
75 0.006314565
80 0.006343464