Current status and prospects for development of thermometry

Abstract

The paper deals with results of an analysis carried out at the VNIIM with the purpose to ascertain the current status of thermometry as well as to make an attempt to determine a line of development of this field of measurements in future. The analysis was based on a survey of 150 industrial enterprises and scientific organizations. The results of the survey showed that during two last decades the accuracy of measuring instruments used in science and industry was increased almost tenfold. However, advances in the improvement of temperature measuring instruments were achieved not owing to new principles of designing thermometers, but due to rapid development of electronics, which allowed to solve the problem of accurate measurements of resistance and electromotive force and automatize measurement information processing. In most cases the contemporary measuring instruments perfectly meet the requirements to the measurement accuracy claimed by the enterprises surveyed and are provided with a necessary metrological assurance. Although there is a general understanding of the necessity to use the thermodynamic scale rather than the conditional one, we have no objective evidence with regard to how close we have to bring the international scale used in our everyday practice to the thermodynamic scale and what will be a benefit for development of science and industry. Increasing the accuracy of national standards does not affect, as a rule, the accuracy of temperature measurements in industry and scientific research since the main contribution to a total measurement error is made by components caused by an improper measurement procedure.