Professor Graham Machin from NPL gave a seminar on “Advances in high temperature measurement”
Professor Graham Machin, Head of Temperature Standards and NPL Fellow at the National Physical Laboratory gave a seminar at Nottingham on “Advances in high temperature measurement” to a packed audience on 6th October 2017. Abstract and bio are below.
ABSTRACT - The reliable measurement of high temperatures in hostile environments is problematic due to, for example, sensor degradation, limited access, and unknown conditions. Typical contact thermometers can easily drift by >10°C over periods of hours, whilst errors in non-contact thermometers can be >50-100 °C due to unknown surface emissivity, window transmission or reflected thermal radiation.
At the same time improving the measurement of high temperatures is vital for a wide variety of industries such as iron and steel, aerospace and nuclear. This is because there are increasing pressures both from regulation and business to achieve better process efficiency i.e. zero waste manufacture, optimize energy use (reduced carbon emissions) as well as improve final product quality.
This talk will outline some of the developments at NPL aimed at improving the practice of thermometry at high temperature and/or in harsh environments. The improvements are, in some cases, facilitated through in-situ validation of the temperature measurement, assuring traceability.
The talk will begin by introducing the foundation of any reliable temperature measurement the current temperature scale the ITS-90, to which all temperature measurements should be traced. The following topics will then be introduced:
- High temperature fixed points to >3300 K with repeatability of <0.05 K
- Improving thermocouple thermometry through self-validation and optimization
- Non-contact thermometry – in-situ corrections for path transmission changes
- Assured non-contact, non-radiance based surface thermometry
- Reliable thermometry in flames and explosions
SPEAKER SHORT BIO - Graham Machin has more than 25 years’ experience in thermometry research, published more than 200 technical papers and given numerous invited/keynote addresses. He has been an invited guest researcher at institutes in Japan and the USA, currently holds a visiting senior researcher position at the National Institute of Metrology, China and visiting Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is the science area leader of the NPL Temperature and Humidity Group and an NPL Fellow. He represents the UK on the Consultative Committee of Thermometry (CCT) and IMEKO TC12, and chairs both the Euramet Technical Committee for Thermometry (TC-T), and the CCT working group for Noncontact thermometry. In addition he is a member of the EPSRC Physical Sciences Strategic Advisory Team, has served on the Council of the Institute of Measurement and Control and contributes to a number of other committees.
Graham is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Measurement and Control (InstMC) and was awarded the InstMC Callendar medal in 2012 for “outstanding contributions to the art of temperature measurement”. He is the president elect of the InstMC (starting 2018). Current research interests are primary thermometry (acoustic and radiometric), radiation thermometry and thermal imaging, new thermocouples, sensor self-validation methods, clinical thermometry (contact, non-contact and internal), reliable temperature (and other) measurement in hostile environments (especially aerospace and nuclear decommissioning).
Graham is the current project director of “Implementing the new kelvin” for EURAMET and “diabetic foot ulceration prevention” for the UK NHS, Graham is visiting Professor of Thermometry in Harsh Environments (University of Strathclyde). Visiting Professor of Clinical Thermal Imaging (University of South Wales) and Distinguished Visiting Fellow (colaborador honorífico) (University of Valladolid).
