HYSTERESIS AND THERMAL INERTIA OF SPHERES OF ALTERNATIVE MATERIALS FOR BLACK GLOBE THERMOMETERS

ABSTRACT This research was conducted with the objective of evaluating the thermal inertia and hysteresis of the following materials in a wind tunnel: hollow copper sphere with 150.0 mm diameter used as standard in globe thermometers, hollow brass sphere with 75.0 mm diameter, and two hollow plastic spheres with 115.5 and 69.7 mm diameter. The results showed that the thermal inertia and hysteresis for the hollow copper sphere were approximately 24 and 28 min, respectively; these values were bigger than those obtained for the other spheres, implying faster responses of these. While there were no statistical differences in the measurements conducted by globe thermometers which are used to indicate the black globe temperature with the different types of spheres mentioned above under indoor environment conditions, i.e., with no wind and solar radiation, the wind causes faster cooling in smaller spheres under outdoor environment conditions, which may denote erroneous interpretations of the measurements at those instants. It was concluded that it is possible to replace the hollow copper sphere of diameter 150 mm by other types of spheres to measure the black globe temperature. However, this requires knowledge of the response times of the spheres as well as corrections to be made in the measurements with respect to the globe thermometer standard.