Temperature measurements and gamma

distribution : A perfect wedding

Flavio Floriani - October 02, 2014

TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT AND GAMMA DISTRIBUTION

Lets introduce a method to estimate the errors created by placing the thermocouples in
temperature measurement. It will be shown how the errors depend on temperature gradient. We will
associate a probability density function (PDF) to the error calculated from experimental data and we
will give a statistical instrument to evaluate the results of temperature test on electrical products.

An overview

Since the 1800s heat propagation has been studied by many physicists; its behavior can be
described by some partial differential equations (PDE) :

The Laplaces equation if we want to study heat propagation when the heat source is outside the
object and when is not dependent by time (time invariant)

The Poisson equation if we want to study heat propagation when the heat source is also contained in
the object and when it is not dependent by time (time invariant)

The heat equation when we need to study time-dependent phenomena .

Well start with a quick introduction to the time-independent phenomena by studying the Laplace
and Poisson equations and then elaborate to understand the technique used to measure the
temperature on a solid object (thermocouple method)

We will focus on the measurement errors and we investigate them.

Therefore

T is the temperature (scalar field)

f is a function which satisfy the equation [2]
a is the thermal diffusivity
t is the time

Now build a domain where we will solve the Laplace equation on a two dimensional plane:

Simply construct a rectangular shape with a spherical surface on the left end side (imagine that it
could be an object in contact with a heat source on the spherical side), and impose these boundary
conditions:

At each boundary we impose Dirichlet conditions; the temperature values have a decreasing linear
trend along the x axis: at the spherical side the temperature has the highest value whereas the
lowest value is at the right side (dont pay too much attention to the numerical values, just focus on
the qualitative representation given in the picture below in particular to the length of the arrows
which represent the temperature gradient)

Suppose now we want to solve the Poisson equation by also changing the boundary condition; lets
take the same object, impose the Neumann conditions at the spherical side and also parameterize a
heat source; again dont focus on the numerical values, they can be arranged for each particular
physics object and situation

Lets think about the temperature measurement: we want to measure the highest temperature of the
object by placing a thermocouple; the hot junction will be placed on the object and it will be fixed by

some glue or cement. If the hot junction is not strictly close to the hottest point we are going to
make a measurement error; is it possible to estimate this error and then predict it? Is it possible to
have a statistical function which describes the error trend with respect to the method used to fix the
thermocouple?

We are now going to answer these questions.

First make some considerations:

1. We cannot measure a temperature value higher than the true temperature. If the true
temperature value of the object will be 70 C we cannot measure 80 C (for sure we are talking
about a calibrated thermocouple and fixed in such a manner that the object has no significant
variation of its thermal dissipation characteristic)
2. The more the absolute value of the gradient is high, the more any little variation of the position of
the hot junction will introduce an error in the measurement

After these considerations we need something (a probability density function) which satisfies the
following statements:

1. The probability to measure the true value is zero

2. The expected value shall correspond to the expected mean error and it shall be a function of the
temperature gradient
3. The probability goes to zero when the error became higher

A distribution which reflects all these statements is the Gamma distribution:

Where G is the Eulers function which for any integer k gives back the factorial of k (!k)
The Gamma function
The Gamma function depends on two parameters, one called shape parameter k and the second one
called gauge parameter . These two parameters are related to the mean value and the variance s2
by the following relations:

And obviously its cumulative density function (CDF) is:

Choosing the parameters k and its possible to obtain functions like these:

Figure 1 Low gradient zone

Figure 2 High gradient zone

In figure 1 we can see the gamma function associated with a low gradient zone
In figure 2 we can see the gamma function associated with a high gradient zone.

Now, how can we estimate the k and parameters? Lets do it!

1. Find the particular fixing method you want to investigate i.e. a screw terminal which conducts
current
2. Place the thermocouple as usual i.e. by inserting the thermocouple directly into the terminal
together with the wire
3. Start the test (be sure that the current source {or any heat source} has no significant
fluctuations)
4. Wait for the thermal equilibrium and then record the final temperature and the ambient
temperature
5. Completely dismantle the set-up and restart from point 2. Eventually also change the person who
made the set-up

Once you get a good number of data points (20 or more), you can calculate the temperature delta for
each measurement:

So now suppose that the maximum T measured is the closest value to the true temperature. We
can also evaluate the average value of T as usual:

And then take the difference between the maximum T recorded and the average T:

And also calculate the variance of T values:

Now we finally get the values of (average error) and s2 which are required to get the values of k
and in formulas [5] and [6]. So we can parameterize the gamma function and with a calculus
program like Matlab or Excel we can evaluate the probability density function as indicated in
figure 1 or figure 2 (note that k shall be chosen as the nearest integer to the calculated value).

With this data you can check the results of a temperature measurement, compare the recorded value
with the limit and decide if more investigation is needed. An example:

Suppose you measure 75 C and the given limit for the conformity is 77 C. If you estimated a
probability density function for that fixing method you can know what the confidence degree of your
reading is and decide if you need further investigation or not.

Over time you can supervise the calculated probability density function by fitted data of new
repeated measurements:

Figure 3 Fitted data (green cross) of measurements repeated after one year compared
with probability density function (blue line) calculated on first data set

Finally we notice a relationship between the temperature gradient and the temperature
measurement errors:

Further proof of this relationship is given by the same evaluation performed on the ambient
temperature: if you do these measurements on ambient temperature (or on any homogenous
temperature object) you will get both parameters going to zero and try to take the limits for and
s2 go to zero (sure, they really can never be zero due to instrumental errors) and see what happens
to the probability density function

Now you can stop here or if you want to be more precise (need more math) you should calculate the
convolution between the estimated probability density function and the Gaussian distribution which
describes the uncertainty of your measurement system at each measurement point:

Figure 4 Convolution of two PDFs

As shown in the picture above, the red curve looks like a Gaussian shape and it makes sense due to
central limit theorem; furthermore now you obtain a non-zero probability to do a positive error (to
measure a temperature higher than the true temperature), and this also makes sense because the
symmetry of Gaussian function. Notice that the Gaussian curve shall to be centered on the measured
value (because we assume that the measured value is the most probable of a Gaussian curve). You
should make this procedure any time you take a measurement and it appears too complicated to
manage or does not make any sense for the purpose of this article.