Short wavelengths active bichromatic pulsed pyrometer for solids and liquids designed for measurements in harsh environments

Abstract

Optical passive methods for temperature measurements such as thermography or optical pyrometry are very interesting because they allow a non-intrusive measurement when the emissivity is known. The knowledge of this coefficient is critical for determining the actual temperature of a surface from the thermal radiation emitted in a wavelength band. The bichromatic pulsed pyrometer allows to overcome the knowledge of this parameter provided that precautions are taken in the choice of the values of wavelengths. When the object to be measured is placed in harsh environments, such passive optical methods are greatly disturbed by the presence of an optically absorbing medium. They are also distorted when the measured objects are located in very hot environments emitting intense disturbing radiation. In this study, we present an active bichromatic radiometric method for measuring the temperature of a surface in harsh environments. The method is based on a localized excitation by a modulated laser source in the infrared range. Detecting the temperature modulation, which is correlated with the excitation, is performed using a lock-in amplifier able to extract the signal embedded in a noise up to a million times superior. Working at short wavelengths (visible range and near infrared range) offers a large dynamic range and minimizes the error due to variations in emissivity with the wavelength. This system collects the radiation emitted by the object at a distance from a few meters up to dozens of meters depending on the configuration of the optical system. Both the principle and the design of the active bichromatic optical surface thermometer are presented and discussed. To demonstrate the method, results obtained on a molten ceramic stream are presented.