thumb|right|A medical/clinical thermometer showing the temperature of

Temperature measurement (also known as thermometry) describes the process of measuring a current temperature for immediate or later evaluation. Datasets consisting of repeated standardized measurements can be used to assess temperature trends.

History

Attempts at standardized temperature measurement prior to the 17th century were crude at best. For instance in 170 AD, physician Claudius Galenus mixed equal portions of ice and boiling water to create a "neutral" temperature standard. The modern scientific field has its origins in the works by Florentine scientists in the 1600s including Galileo constructing devices able to measure relative change in temperature, but subject also to confounding with atmospheric pressure changes. These early devices were called thermoscopes. The first sealed thermometer was constructed in 1654 by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II. In the field of reactive flows (e.g., combustion, plasmas), laser induced fluorescence (LIF), CARS, and laser absorption spectroscopy have been exploited to measure temperature inside engines, gas-turbines, shock-tubes, synthesis reactors etc. The capability of such optical-based techniques include rapid measurement (down to nanosecond timescales), notwithstanding the ability to not perturb the subject of measurement (e.g., the flame, shock-heated gases).

US (ASME) Standards

  • B40.200-2008: Thermometers, Direct Reading and Remotes Reading.
  • PTC 19.3-1974(R2004): Performance test code for temperature measurement.

Air temperature

Standards

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has developed two separate and distinct standards on temperature Measurement, B40.200 and PTC 19.3.

B40.200 provides guidelines for bimetallic-actuated, filled-system, and liquid-in-glass thermometers. It also provides guidelines for thermowells.

PTC 19.3 provides guidelines for temperature measurement related to Performance Test Codes with particular emphasis on basic sources of measurement errors and techniques for coping with them.

Satellite temperature measurement

See also

  • Timeline of temperature and pressure measurement technology
  • Conversion of scales of temperature
  • Color temperature
  • Planck temperature
  • Temperature data logger

References

  • Another contemporaneous survey of related material.
  • A detailed contemporaneous survey of thermometric theory and thermometer design.
  • A comparison of different measurement technologies