Electricity + Control August 2019

TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT + INSTRUMENTATION

competition among manufacturers, infrared thermometers are continually being improved and electronic design is one aspect of the instruments that has seen the most improvements recently. R&C Instrumentation covers the full range of infrared temperature measuring devices. The Raytek range of portable units covers temperatures from -50 to 3 000 °C. Raytek was one of the first companies to introduce this technology and its IR thermometers are now a recognised industry standard. R&C also carries fixed units from Raytek and Ircon, both well-known in the field. The scanners from these companies can be supplied as complete applications packages, with tried and tested software, to fit into different industrial applications. Continual innovation has seen the development of new products like the Endurance and Thermalert series, designed by Raytek and Ircon working together, now combined as Fluke Process Instruments. Infrared temperature measurement is an important factor in maintenance and control of process plants. R&C Instrumentation has the expertise and in-house applications engineers to advise and assist customers in selecting the right product for individual applications.

Recently the IR sensor market has seen two major trends. First, IR thermometers are significantly lower in cost than they were. The most expensive parts of an infrared thermometer are the lenses and detectors. New lens materials, technologies and mass production of IR detectors for consumer products have resulted in lower prices for these two important components. Together with the increased demand for industrial IR thermometers, high volume production of standard sensors has resulted in greater manufacturing efficiencies for IR thermometer manufacturers. Second, IR sensors are becoming smaller in size. In the past, the measurement of low temperatures made it necessary to use fast lenses with relatively large diameters in order to capture enough emitted energy. Progress in detector technology and the use of better detector performance, together with improved low noise analogue preamplifier techniques, have helped reduce the dimensions of the IR-sensing head significantly. Because the newer sensors have greater response characteristics they need less energy to achieve a usable signal. As a result, lenses can be smaller in diameter. Due to increasing expectations of users and

Temperature measurement is an important factor in the maintenance and control of process plants. Non-contact thermometers provide for consistent and accurate temperature measurement

in industrial processes.