Analyzing impact of sensor coupling on measurement representativeness of wall surface temperature

Abstract

Poor thermal-coupling between sensor and surface is one of the most important factors causing inaccuracy in measurement. Different methods had been suggested by scientists to solve this issue. Embedding the sensor into an object was one of these methods. The goal of these simulations was to assess the impact of sensor coupling on measurement representativeness of wall surface temperature. For this purpose, a cylindrically-shaped sensor was embedded into the internal surface of the wall assembly. The levels of tightness varied from 10% to 90%, which corresponded respectively from very loose to very tight conditions. Also, in this process the impact of other factors such size and materiality of the sensors’ accuracy were evaluated and discussed briefly. In this study, the results proved that as the sensor decoupled more from the surrounding environment, more accurate data was generated from it. Also, the results from the simulations signified the importance of the temperature difference between the wall surface and the indoor air temperature. The temperature difference had a direct relationship with sensor accuracy and measurement representativeness, where smaller temperature difference was associated with higher accuracy.