Performance Characteristics of Custom Thermocouples for Specialized Applications

This work reports the performance characteristics of custom thermocouples developed for use in elevated temperatures such as metal casting operations. The scope this research is limited to designed using pyrolytic graphite (PG) primary thermoelement connection with aluminum, copper, steel, and tungsten. Seebeck coefficients sensors were determined from experimental data after heating ~500 °C. Cooling °C room temperature enabled us compare characteristic behaviors obtained near-linear responses voltage-temperature plots. Tungsten being a refractory produced highest sensitivity sensors. PG-tungsten thermocouple upon measured up 26 μV/°C slightly lower value 24.2 was cooling. Conversely, PG-steel rather lowest 13.8 during 14.0 cooling experiments though steel has high melting than most other thermoelements.