Research on temperature measurement technology for graphite-cone-absorption-cavity absolute calorimeter

The nonlinear effect of materials and sensors in high-energy laser calorimeters is especially obvious-due to the steep temperature gradients of their absorbers. Significant measurement errors occur when traditional integral temperature sensors and methods are utilized. In an effort to remedy this, a method is proposed in this paper in which an absorption cavity is divided into many parts and multiple discrete thermocouple sensors are used to measure the temperature rise of the absorbers. The temperature distribution in the absorbers is theoretically analyzed, numerically simulated, and verified through experimentation. Energy measurement results are compared according to the temperature distribution for different layouts of thermocouples. A high-accuracy calorimeter is developed by setting and optimizing thermocouple layout, as well as correcting various elements such as the specific heat of graphite and responsivity of thermocouples. The calorimeter employing this measurement method is calibrated against a standard energy meter, resulting in correction coefficient of 1.027 and relative standard deviation of the correction coefficient of only 0.8%. Theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and experimental verification all prove that the proposed method successfully improves measurement accuracy.