Casey Thompson, Erik Richardson, Ben Ward

Thermocouple Lab
Thermocouples are devices used to measure temperatures. They can be especially helpful when you want to compare temperature differences between various materials or surfaces. For the lab two different metals, aluminum and steel, were heated to a steady-state temperature. The aluminum plate was first heated to a steady-state temperature of 200 C. Next, the steel cylinder was placed onto the aluminum plate and allowed to heat to steady-state. The purpose of this lab was to model the system analytically and experimentally, comparing the results and determining potential error sources. The first step was to analytically model the system. It was necessary to calculate a Biot number to determine if we could use lumped capacitance or not. Our Biot number ended up being 0.0005462, which was less than the 0.1 criteria required. The method we used involved Equation 1 below where ( ) ( ) (1)

Tss is the steady-state temperature, To represent initial specimen temperature, t is time, and represents the time constant. Equation 1 allowed us to calculate the temperature of the specimen over any time interval. The second part of the lab was to gather measured data using two thermocouples attached to the aluminum plate and the steel specimen, respectively. We heated the aluminum to steady-state, 184.1 C, and then placed the steel cylinder on the aluminum. Measurements of the steel were taken every second until the steel reached a steady temperature, which ended up being 146.6 C. The front panel and block diagram of the Lab View program is shown in Figure 1 in the appendix. This measured data was compared to the analytical model, as seen in Table 1 in the appendix. The next step was to try and improve upon our analytical model through adding a standard contact resistance of air between the aluminum and steel specimen of 0.00002 meters. This was done through modifying our conduction resistance, or Rk values, in our initial model. The improved model data is also included in Table 1 in the appendix. A comparison of these two models is illustrated in Figure 2 in the appendix. The last step of the lab was to modify the air gap between the aluminum and steel. The gap distance that we found to correlate to our experimental data was a distance of 0.004 mm. This made sense due to the quality of the machined surfaces of the aluminum and the steel. Figure 3 in the appendix shows the improvement of the mathematical model. There were several factors in the lab that introduced error into our system. One was a faulty hot plate that failed to maintain an initial steady temperature. A second hot plate was used to remedy this problem. Another problem was that the thermocouple tip had to be directly touching the surface of the metal in order to take accurate readings. Despite all these possible problems, our model was quite accurate and modeled the system well.

Casey Thompson, Erik Richardson, Ben Ward APPENDIX Figure 1: Front panel and block diagram views

Table 1: Comparison of specimen data, analytical model, and improved analytical model
Time 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 Specimen 24.536 31.583 45.028 57.477 69.408 79.538 88.782 97.333 105.275 111.434 117.775 122.569 127.871 132.772 136.892 140.307 143.172 146.488 146.598 146.598 146.598 146.598 146.598 146.598 Model 23.600 45.370 63.287 78.033 90.169 100.157 108.377 115.143 120.710 125.293 129.064 132.168 134.722 136.825 138.555 139.979 141.151 142.115 142.909 143.562 144.100 144.542 144.907 145.206 Model (air gap) 23.600 33.049 41.771 49.824 57.258 64.121 70.457 76.306 81.706 86.691 91.293 95.542 99.464 103.085 106.428 109.514 112.362 114.992 117.420 119.662 121.731 123.642 125.405 127.033

Casey Thompson, Erik Richardson, Ben Ward Figure 2: Comparison plots of initial model and improved model

Figure 3: Improved model