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    Question About Liquid in Glass Thermometers

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    Suresh Senanayake
    The document discusses factors that affect the range, sensitivity, and responsiveness of liquid in glass thermometers. It states that range is determined by the type of liquid used, as different liquids freeze and boil at different temperatures. Sensitivity increases with larger bulb size, but this reduces responsiveness as more liquid takes longer to heat up. Responsiveness decreases with larger bulb or wall sizes, as there is more material to heat. A longer bore length or larger bore diameter can increase range, but reduces sensitivity. Changing the liquid medium also impacts range, sensitivity and responsiveness.

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    Question About Liquid in Glass Thermometers

    Uploaded by

    Suresh Senanayake
    564 views2 pages
    The document discusses factors that affect the range, sensitivity, and responsiveness of liquid in glass thermometers. It states that range is determined by the type of liquid used, as different liquids freeze and boil at different temperatures. Sensitivity increases with larger bulb size, but this reduces responsiveness as more liquid takes longer to heat up. Responsiveness decreases with larger bulb or wall sizes, as there is more material to heat. A longer bore length or larger bore diameter can increase range, but reduces sensitivity. Changing the liquid medium also impacts range, sensitivity and responsiveness.

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    Liquid Glass thermometer

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    The document discusses factors that affect the range, sensitivity, and responsiveness of liquid in glass thermometers. It states that range is determined by the type of liquid used, as different liquids freeze and boil at different temperatures. Sensitivity increases with larger bulb size, but this reduces responsiveness as more liquid takes longer to heat up. Responsiveness decreases with larger bulb or wall sizes, as there is more material to heat. A longer bore length or larger bore diameter can increase range, but reduces sensitivity. Changing the liquid medium also impacts range, sensitivity and responsiveness.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    564 views2 pages

    Question About Liquid in Glass Thermometers

    Uploaded by

    Suresh Senanayake
    The document discusses factors that affect the range, sensitivity, and responsiveness of liquid in glass thermometers. It states that range is determined by the type of liquid used, as different liquids freeze and boil at different temperatures. Sensitivity increases with larger bulb size, but this reduces responsiveness as more liquid takes longer to heat up. Responsiveness decreases with larger bulb or wall sizes, as there is more material to heat. A longer bore length or larger bore diameter can increase range, but reduces sensitivity. Changing the liquid medium also impacts range, sensitivity and responsiveness.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 2

    Question about liquid in glass thermometers?

    what is the definition of


    - range
    -sensitivity
    -responsiveness
    and do they increase/decrease in the following scenarios?
    1. Bulb size increase
    2. Thickness of bulb wall increase
    3. Bore diameter increase
    4. Bore length increase
    5. Thinner bore wall
    6. Change in medium (alcohol to mercury)

    Answer
    Liquid in glass thermometers are about to disappear from everywhere except school
    science courses where they will continue to be used to torture students with
    irrelevancies in the name of "it does them good to learn this stuff."
    Range - the thermometer will measure from some low temperature to some high
    temperature. The range can be physically limited by having length of the tube
    limited ( Clinical thermometers used to be quite short and stop at about 45 degrees.
    If you had such a temperature you would probably be about to die anyway. If you
    put such a thermometer into boiling water, it sort of explodes as the expanding fluid
    shatters the glass casing.
    So number 4, longer bore, lets you increase the range of the thermometer.
    But really its number 6 that determines the range. Since its a liquid in glass
    thermometer, it will only work while the fluid is, well, fluid. Once the liquid freezes
    all bets are off, and similarly once the liquid boils, you no longer have a
    thermometer. Mercury, freezes at about -40 Celsius ( and -40 F, how about that?)
    and boils at about 350 Celsius so a mercury thermometer can be used across that
    range.
    -40 isn't low enough for some parts of the planet, so they used to use alcohol
    (Freezing point -120 C) in glass instruments, but couldn't use them to get the right
    temperature for their tea as their boiling point is only 80 C.
    Sensitivity - how small a change of temperature will the thermometer respond to?
    Number 1 - increase the bulb size. This means that for a given temp rise there will
    be a bigger amount of liquid to move up the bore - you will be able to detect smaller
    temp rises.

    But! With more liquid to heat up, such a sensitive thermometer will have a slow
    response time.
    Responsiveness - how quickly will your thermometer get up to temperature.
    Don't increase the bulb size. The larger it is the longer it takes to absorb the
    required heat.
    Don't increase the bulb wall - that reduces responsiveness. ( What it does is improve
    ruggedness.)
    Perhaps number 3 - this would make it easy for the liquid to expand up the tube, but
    at the same time reduce the sensitivity.
    That's enough - I can't think of any reason for making the bore wall thinner, unless
    you were dealing with a total immersion thermometer where you wanted the whole
    column to be at the same temp.
    It gets much more complicated - the liquids used vaporise into the space above
    them ( which ideally should be a vacuum) and the loss of liquid can shorten the
    column, while the resulting vapour pressure stops the column being as long as it
    should be. And liquids do not expand evenly as the temperature changes. And can
    you see them inside their glass tubes?
    No wonder the world of temperature measurement is going digital.
    Other Answers
    range = maximum distance that liquid can travel inside the sealed glass.
    sensitivity = refers to how far the liquid travels when the temperature is
    raised/lowered by one degree.
    responsiveness = how long it takes the liquid to travel and stabilize when the
    temperature is raised/lowered by one degree.
    1.
    2.
    3.
    4.
    5.
    6.
    of

    liquids with a greater responsiveness need a larger bulb.


    liquids with great sensitivity may need a thicker bulb wall.
    tubes with less range need a larger diameter bore.
    tubes with thinner bores must be increased in length.
    thinner bore walls are for liquids with less sensitivity or responsiveness.
    a change in the medium will change the range, sensitivity and/or responsiveness
    a particular thermometer.

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