Pirani gauge

Pirani probe, opened

The Pirani gauge is a robust thermal

conductivity gauge used for the
measurement of the pressures in
vacuum systems.[1] It was invented in
1906 by Marcello Pirani.[2]
Marcello Stefano Pirani was a German
physicist working for Siemens & Halske
which was involved in the vacuum lamp
industry. In 1905 their product was
tantalum lamps which required a high
vacuum environment for the filaments.
The gauges that Pirani was using in the
production environment were some fifty
McCloud gauges, each filled with 2kg of
mercury in glass tubes.[3]

Pirani was aware of the gas thermal

conductivity investigations of Kundt and
Warburg[4] (1875) published thirty years
earlier and the work of Smoluchowski[5]
(1898). In 1906 he described his "directly
indicating vacuum gauge" that used a
heated wire to measure vacuum by
monitoring the heat transfer from the
wire by the vacuum environment.[2]

Structure
The Pirani gauge consists of a metal
sensor wire (usually gold plated tungsten
or platinum) suspended in a tube which
is connected to the system whose
vacuum is to be measured. The
connection is usually made either by a
ground glass joint or a flanged metal
connector, sealed with an o-ring. The
sensor wire is connected to an electrical
circuit from which, after calibration, a
pressure reading may be taken.
Mode of operation

Block diagram of Pirani gauge

Curves to convert air readings to other gases

In order to understand the technology,

consider that in a gas filled system there
are four ways that a heated wire
transfers heat to its surroundings.

1. Gas conduction at high pressure

(r representing the distance
from the heated wire)
2. Gas transport as low pressure

3. Thermal radiation

4. End losses through the support

structures

A heated metal wire (sensor wire, or

simply sensor) suspended in a gas will
lose heat to the gas as its molecules
collide with the wire and remove heat. If
the gas pressure is reduced the number
of molecules present will fall
proportionately and the wire will lose
heat more slowly. Measuring the heat
loss is an indirect indication of pressure.

There are three possible schemes that

can be done.[2]

1. Keep the bridge voltage constant and

measure the change in resistance as a
function of pressure
2. Keep the current constant and
measure the change in resistance as a
function of pressure
3. Keep the temperature of the sensor
wire constant and measure the voltage
as a function of pressure
Note that keeping the temperature
constant implies that the end losses(4.)
and the thermal radiation loses (3.) are
constant.[3]

The electrical resistance of a wire varies

with its temperature, so the resistance
indicates the temperature of wire. In
many systems, the wire is maintained at
a constant resistance R by controlling the
voltage I through the wire. The resistance
can be set using a bridge circuit. The
voltage required to achieve this balance
is therefore a measure of the vacuum.

The gauge may be used for pressures

between 0.5 Torr to 1×10−4 Torr. Below
5×10−4 Torr, a Pirani gauge has only one
significant digit of resolution. The
thermal conductivity and heat capacity of
the gas affects the readout from the
meter, and therefore the apparatus may
need calibrating before accurate
readings are obtainable. For lower
pressure measurement, the thermal
conductivity of the gas becomes
increasingly smaller and more difficult to
measure accurately, and other
instruments such as a Penning gauge or
Bayard-Alpert gauge are used instead.

Pulsed Pirani gauge

A special form of the Pirani gauge is the
pulsed Pirani vacuum gauge where the
sensor wire is not operated at a constant
temperature, but is cyclically heated up
to a certain temperature threshold by an
increasing voltage ramp. When the
threshold is reached, the heating voltage
is switched off and the sensor cools
down again. The required heat-up time is
used as a measure of pressure.

For adequately low pressure the

following relation for supplied heating
power and sensor temperature T(t)
applies:[6]

where is the heating capacity of the

sensor wire, is the mass of the
sensor wire and and are
constants.

Advantages and
disadvantages of the pulsed
gauge

Advantages
Significantly better resolution in the
range above 75 Torr.[7]
The power consumption is drastically
reduced compared to continuously
operated Pirani gauges.
The gauge's thermal influence on the
real measurement is lowered
considerably due to the low
 temperature threshold of 80 °C and the
ramp heating in pulsed mode.
The pulsed mode can be efficiently
implemented using modern
microprocessors.
Disadvantages
Increased calibration effort
Longer heat-up phase

Alternative
An alternative to the Pirani gauge is the
thermocouple gauge, which works on the
same principle of detecting thermal
conductivity of the gas by a change in
temperature. In the thermocouple gauge,
the temperature is sensed by a
thermocouple rather than by the change
in resistance of the heated wire.

References
1. Ellett, A. "Phys. Rev. 37 (1931): A. Ellett
and R. M. Zabel - The Pirani Gauge for the
Measurement of Small Changes of
Pressure" . Physical Review. 37: 1102–
1111. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.37.1102 .
2. von Pirani, M (1906). Deutsche
Physikalische Gesellschaft, Verh. 8: 24.
Missing or empty |title= (help)
3. Borichevsky (2017). Understanding
Modern Vacuum Technology. p. 62.
ISBN 9781974554461.