The aim of this work package is to develop, manufacture and test novel devices and methods that will enable the stakeholders and NMIs to monitor the drift of their thermocouples in-situ.

Thermocouples are the most commonly used type of thermometers for measuring temperature in industry. When the thermocouple tip is exposed to a given temperature, a particular voltage is generated between its leads. However, the voltage generated in a thermocouple at a particular temperature changes over time and this phenomenon is called drift. It is basically a departure of the voltage–temperature relationship from the one determined during the previous calibration, or a rapid excursion from the manufacturer’s tolerances. The rate of drift is influenced by many factors. Generally, it becomes more pronounced at higher temperatures, and therefore it is essentially impossible to predict. For industrial users drift causes many problems, such as higher energy costs, loss of time due to process disruption (to replace or recalibrate the failed thermocouples) which usually involves shutting down the processes and waste of product when measuring errors become too large. Although drift is usually anticipated at high temperatures (above 1100 °C), it can also be observed at temperatures as low as 150 °C. For the reasons mentioned, it is essential to develop new devices and methods for drift estimation that do not require thermocouple removal from the process setup. The work on the proposed topic will enable the participating NMIs to establish new networks with industrial stakeholders, as well as to share expertise among themselves through collaboration in this work package. In general, the knowledge gathered in this work package will help the partners from emerging countries to further develop their capabilities in designing and building new measurement equipment.

The aim of this work package is to develop and test easy-to-operate methods and instruments for the assessment of inhomogeneities of thermocouples for secondary calibration laboratories.

The facilities that will be developed in this work package are a set of miniature cells in a temperature range from 230 °C to 1100 °C that corresponds to the Sn-Cu FP range of ITS-90. The miniature cells will be integrated with a platinum based thermocouple (S, Au/Pt, Pt/Pd type). During development and construction of the facility, special attention will be paid to the needs of the secondary laboratories as well as to the flexibility of the design that will give the possibility for these cells to be used on-site. TUBITAK, FSB and CMI construct the miniature cells and will validate the performance of the thermocouples with integrated cells. For metrological validation and determination of homogeneity of thermocouples with integrated cells, the traceable facilities of TUBITAK, FSB and CMI will be used.

The aim of this work package is to develop and investigate new procedures that can provide confidence in the verification of thermocouple performance and to quantify more efficiently the drift and inhomogeneity of the thermocouples. The novel facilities should provide the ability to measure the influence of the physical changes to the behaviour of thermocouples under typical conditions of the production and distribution processes.

Another important goal of WP3 is a more efficient metrology service at high temperatures, given by these new skills and expertise in thermocouple metrology.

The aim of this work package is to ensure the wide dissemination of the knowledge generated within this project. It is also important to gather information and on-going feedback regarding the needs of the end users and other stakeholders both in terms of those providing input to the project and the European end-user community. This work package will also ensure that the developments achieved in this project will be available for exploitation by a wide range of stakeholders in industry, the metrology and scientific community and public institutes and bodies.

The project will be managed by the coordinator from TUBITAK who will be supported by the project management board consisting of one representative from each partner; including the leaders of each work package. The members of the project management board will guide the project, attend the project meetings, organise the progress meetings at their local institutes and call additional meetings if needed to ensure the overall project’s success.