2.

3: Radiation Thermometers (Pyrometers)

All objects emit electromagnetic radiation as a function of their temperature above absolute
zero, and radiation thermometers (also known as radiation pyrometers) measure this radiation in
order to calculate the temperature of the object. The total rate of radiation emission per second is
given by: E=KT4
The power spectral density of this emission varies with temperature in the manner shown in
Figure 2.4. The major part of the frequency spectrum lies within the band of wavelengths
between 0.3 μm and 1000 μm, which corresponds to the visible (0.3–0.72 μm) and infrared
(0.72–1000 μm) ranges. As the magnitude of the radiation varies with temperature, measurement
of the emission from a body allows the temperature of the body to be calculated. Choice of the
best method of measuring the emitted radiation depends on the temperature of the body. At low
temperatures, the peak of the power spectral density function (Figure 2.4) lies in the infrared
region, whereas at higher temperatures it moves towards the visible part of the spectrum. This
phenomenon is observed as the red glow that a body begins to emit as its temperature is
increased beyond 600°C.
Different versions of radiation thermometers are capable of measuring temperatures between
-100°C and +10 000°C with measurement inaccuracy as low as ±0.05% (though this level of
accuracy is not obtained when measuring very high temperatures). Portable, battery-powered,
hand-held versions are also available, and these are particularly easy to use. The important
advantage that radiation thermometers have over other types of temperature-measuring
instrument is that there is no contact with the hot body while its temperature is being
measured. Thus, the measured system is not disturbed in any way. Furthermore, there is no
possibility of contamination, which is particularly important in food and many other process
industries. They are especially suitable for measuring high temperatures that are beyond the
capabilities of contact instruments such as thermocouples, resistance thermometers and
thermistors. They are also capable of measuring moving bodies, for instance the temperature of
steel bars in a rolling mill. Their use is not as straightforward as the discussion so far might have
suggested, however, because the radiation from a body varies with the composition and
surface condition of the body as well as with temperature. This dependence on surface
condition is quantified by the emissivity of the body. The use of radiation thermometers is further
complicated by absorption and scattering of the energy between the emitting body and the

1
radiation detector. Energy is scattered by atmospheric dust and water droplets and absorbed
by carbon dioxide, ozone and water vapour molecules.
Therefore, all radiation thermometers have to be carefully calibrated for each particular body
whose temperature they are required to monitor. Various types of radiation thermometer exist, as
described below. The optical pyrometer can only be used to measure high temperatures, but
various types of radiation pyrometers are available that between them cover the whole
temperature spectrum.

Figure 2.4: Power spectral density of radiated energy emission at various temperatures.

2
Fig. 2.5: The electromagnetic spectrum, with range from around 0.7 to 14 µm useful for
measuring purposes.

A, Optical pyrometers
The optical pyrometer, illustrated in Figure 2.6, is designed to measure temperatures where the
peak radiation emission is in the red part of the visible spectrum, i.e. where the measured body
glows a certain shade of red according to the temperature. This limits the instrument to
measuring temperatures above 600°C. This is based on comparing the brightness of the light
emitted by the hot body with that from a known standard. The instrument contains a heated
tungsten filament within its optical system. The current in the filament is increased until its
colour is the same as the hot body: under these conditions the filament apparently disappears
when viewed against the background of the hot body.
Temperature measurement is therefore obtained in terms of the current flowing in the filament.
As the brightness of different materials at any particular temperature varies according to the
emissivity of the material, the calibration of the optical pyrometer must be adjusted according to
the emissivity of the target. Manufacturers provide tables of standard material emissivities to
assist with this.
The inherent measurement inaccuracy of an optical pyrometer is ±5°C. However, in addition to
this error, there can be a further operator-induced error of ±10°C arising out of the difficulty in

3
judging the moment when the filament ‘just’ disappears. Measurement accuracy can be
improved somewhat by employing an optical filter within the instrument that passes a narrow
band of frequencies of wavelength around 0.65 μm corresponding to the red part of the visible
spectrum. This also extends the upper temperature measurable from 5000°C in unfiltered
instruments up to 10 000°C. The instrument cannot be used in automatic temperature control
schemes because the eye of the human operator is an essential part of the measurement
system.

Figure 2.6: Optical pyrometer

B, Radiation pyrometers
All the alternative forms of radiation pyrometer described below have an optical system that is
similar to that in the optical pyrometer and focuses the energy emitted from the measured body.
However, they differ by omitting the filament and eyepiece and having instead an energy
detector in the same focal plane as the eyepiece was, as shown in Figure 2.7. This principle can
be used to measure temperature over a range from -100°C to +3600°C. The radiation detector is
either a thermal detector, which measures the temperature rise in a black body at the focal point
of the optical system, or a photon detector.
Thermal detectors respond equally to all wavelengths in the frequency spectrum, and consist of
either thermopiles, resistance thermometers or thermistors. All of these typically have time

4
constants of several milliseconds, because of the time taken for the black body to heat up and
the temperature sensor to respond to the temperature change.
Photon detectors respond selectively to a particular band within the full spectrum, and are
usually of the photoconductive or photovoltaic type. They respond to temperature changes very
much faster than thermal detectors because they involve atomic processes, and typical
measurement time constants are a few microseconds.

Figure 2.7: Structure of the radiation thermometer

1, Broad-band (unchopped) radiation pyrometers

The Broad-band (total radiation) pyrometer involves the radiation from the hot object being
focused onto a radiation detector.
The detector is typically a thermopile with often up to 20 or 30 thermocouple junctions, a
resistance element or a thermistor. The detector is said to be broad band since it detects
radiation over a wide band of frequencies and so the output is the summation of the power
emitted at every wavelength. It is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature (the Stefan-
Boltzmann law).
The accuracy of broad band total radiation pyrometers is typically about ±0.5% and ranges are
available within the region OoC to 3000°C. The time constant (a measure of how fast the system
responds to a change in temperature and is the time taken to reach about 63% of the final value)
for the instrument varies from about 0.1s when the detector is just one thermocouple or small
bead thermistor to a few seconds with a thermopile involving many thermocouples.
This is because the temperature of the detector increases until the heat gain from the incident
radiation is balanced by the heat loss due to convection and radiation.

5
For high-temperature measurement, a two-couple thermopile gives acceptable measurement
sensitivity and has a fast time constant of about 0.1 s. At lower measured temperatures, where
the level of incident radiation is much less, thermopiles constructed from a greater number of
thermocouples must be used to get sufficient measurement sensitivity.
Thermocouples
Thermocouples are formed when two dissimilar metals are joined together to form a junction. An
electrical circuit is completed by joining the other ends of the dissimilar metals together to form
a second junction. A current will flow in the circuit if the two junctions are at different
temperatures as shown in Figure 2.8(a). The current flowing is the result of the difference in
electromotive force developed at the two junctions due to their temperature difference. In
practice, the voltage difference between the two junctions is measured; the difference in the
voltage is proportional to the temperature difference between the two junctions. Note that the
thermocouple can only be used to measure temperature differences. However, if one junction is
held at a reference temperature the voltage between the thermocouples gives a measurement of
the temperature of the second junction.

Figure 2.8 (a) A thermocouple circuit, (b) thermocouples connected to form a thermopile, and
(c) focusing EM rays onto a thermopile.

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Thermopile is a number of thermocouples connected in series, to increase the sensitivity and
accuracy by increasing the output voltage when measuring low temperature differences. Each of
the reference junctions in the thermopile is returned to a common reference temperature as
shown in Figure 2.8(b)

Figure 2.9: Thermocouple emf versus temperature for various types.

Thermistors
Thermistors are a class of metal oxide (semiconductor material) which typically have a high
negative temperature coefficient of resistance, but can also be positive. Thermistors have high
sensitivity which can be up to 10 percent change per degree Celsius, making them the most
sensitive temperature elements available, but with very nonlinear characteristics. The typical
response times is 0.5 s to 5 s with an operating range from −50oC to typically 300°C. Devices are
available with the temperature range extended to 500°C. Thermistors are low cost and

7
manufactured in a wide range of shapes, sizes, and values. When in use care has to be taken to
minimize the effects of internal heating. Thermistor materials have a temperature coefficient of
resistance (α) given by

,
RT =RT e α ¿¿
2 1

where ΔR is the change in resistance due to a temperature change ΔT , RS the material resistance
at the reference temperature, RT is the resistance of the thermistor due to the temperature T 2, and
2

RT is the initial resistance of the thermistor at temperature of T 1. The nonlinear characteristics

1

are as shown in Figure 2.10 and make the device difficult to use as an accurate measuring device
without compensation, but its sensitivity and low cost makes it useful in many applications.

Figure 2.10 Thermistor resistance temperature curve.

2, Chopped broad-band radiation pyrometers
The construction of this form of pyrometer is broadly similar to that shown in Figure 2.7 except
that a rotary mechanical device is included that periodically interrupts the radiation reaching
the detector. The voltage output from the thermal detector thus becomes an alternating quantity
that switches between two levels. This form of a.c. output can be amplified much more readily

8
(easily) than the d.c. output coming from an unchopped instrument. This is particularly
important when amplification is necessary to achieve an acceptable measurement resolution
in situations where the level of incident radiation from the measured body is low. For this
reason, this form of instrument is the more common when measuring body temperatures
associated with peak emission in the infrared part of the frequency spectrum. For such chopped
systems, the time constant of thermopiles is too long. Instead, thermistors are generally used,
giving a time constant of 0.01 s. Standard instruments of this type are available to measure
temperatures between +20°C and +1300°C. This form of pyrometer suffers similar accuracy drift
to unchopped forms. Its life is also limited to about two years because of motor failures.

3, Narrow-band radiation pyrometers

They are also less sensitive to emissivity changes than other forms of radiation pyrometer.
They use photo detectors of either the photoconductive or photovoltaic form whose performance
is unaffected by either carbon dioxide or water vapour in the path between the target object and
the instrument. A photoconductive detector exhibits a change in resistance as the incident
radiation level changes whereas a photovoltaic cell exhibits an induced voltage across its
terminals that is also a function of the incident radiation level. All photodetectors are
preferentially sensitive to a particular narrow band of wavelengths in the range 0.5 μm–1.2 μm.
Four commonly used materials for photo detectors are cadmium sulphide, lead sulphide, indium
antimonide and lead–tin telluride. Each of these is sensitive to a different band of wavelengths
and therefore all find application in measuring the particular temperature ranges corresponding to
each of these bands. The output from the narrow-band radiation pyrometer is normally chopped
into an a.c. signal in the same manner as used in the chopped broad-band pyrometer. This
simplifies the amplification of the output signal, which is necessary to achieve an acceptable
measurement resolution. The typical time constant of a photon detector is only 5 μs, which
allows high chopping frequencies up to 20 kHz. This gives such instruments an additional
advantage in being able to measure fast transients in temperatureas short as 10µs.
4, Two-colour pyrometer (ratio pyrometer)
As stated earlier, the emitted radiation–temperature relationship for a body depends on its
emissivity. This is very difficult to calculate, and therefore in practice all pyrometers have to be
calibrated to the particular body they are measuring. The two-colour pyrometer (alternatively

9
known as a ratio pyrometer) is a system that largely overcomes this problem by using the
arrangement shown in Figure 2.11. Radiation from the body is split equally into two parts, which
are applied to separate narrow-band filters. The outputs from the filters consist of radiation
within two narrow bands of wavelength λ1 and λ2. Detectors sensitive to these frequencies
produce output voltages V1 and V2 respectively. The ratio of these outputs, (V1/V2), can be
shown to be a function of temperature and to be independent of the emissivity provided that the
two wavelengths λ1 and λ2 are close together.
The theoretical basis of the two-colour pyrometer is that the output is independent of
emissivity because the emissivities at the two wavelengths λ1 and λ2 are equal.

Figure 2.11: Two-colour pyrometer system.

This is based on the assumption that λ1 and λ2 are very close together. In practice, this
assumption does not hold and therefore the accuracy of the two-colour pyrometer tends to be
relatively poor. However, the instrument is still of great use in conditions where the target is
obscured by fumes or dust, which is a common problem in the cement and mineral processing
industries. Two-colour pyrometers typically cost 50% to 100% more than other types of
pyrometer.
5, Selected waveband pyrometer
The selected waveband pyrometer is sensitive to one waveband only, e.g. 5 μm, and is dedicated
to particular, special situations where other forms of pyrometer are inaccurate.

10