Accurate measurement of unsteady state fluid temperature

In this paper, two accurate methods for determining the transient fluid temperature were presented. Measurements were conducted for boiling water since its temperature is known. At the beginning the thermometers are at the ambient temperature and next they are immediately immersed into saturated water. The measurements were carried out with two thermometers of different construction but with the same housing outer diameter equal to 15 mm. One of them is a K-type industrial thermometer widely available commercially. The temperature indicated by the thermometer was corrected considering the thermometers as the first or second order inertia devices. The new design of a thermometer was proposed and also used to measure the temperature of boiling water. Its characteristic feature is a cylinder-shaped housing with the sheath thermocouple located in its center. The temperature of the fluid was determined based on measurements taken in the axis of the solid cylindrical element (housing) using the inverse space marching method. Measurements of the transient temperature of the air flowing through the wind tunnel using the same thermometers were also carried out. The proposed measurement technique provides more accurate results compared with measurements using industrial thermometers in conjunction with simple temperature correction using the inertial thermometer model of the first or second order. By comparing the results, it was demonstrated that the new thermometer allows obtaining the fluid temperature much faster and with higher accuracy in comparison to the industrial thermometer. Accurate measurements of the fast changing fluid temperature are possible due to the low inertia thermometer and fast space marching method applied for solving the inverse heat conduction problem.