FIRST ORDER DYNAMICS: BULB

THERMOMETER
AIM: To determine time constant and study the first order dynamics for
mercury bulb thermometer

APPARATUS:

A flask to heat the liquid.

Ethylene glycol solution.
A mercury thermometer to determine the temperature at regular
point of time.
A hot-plate to heat the flask containing solution.
A stop-watch to note the time.

PROCEDURE:

Fill the liquid in a flask completely and heat it below the boiling point
(up to around 120oC.
Note down the thermometer reading, which is the room
temperature.
Insert the thermometer into the liquid bath till mercury shows the
highest level.
Take the thermometer out, wipe it and let the temperature fall down
to 100oC
Start the stop watch and take reading of time for every 5 OC fall in
temperature.
Repeat the experiment for about 3-4 times.

THEORY:
Dynamics of a first order system can written in the form as given below
dy
+ y=Ku
dt
Here,
= Time constant for the system (Tau)
y = response of the system
u = input of the system.
K = gain of the system

Dynamics of a first order system can be studied only by knowing one parameter
i.e
The time constant determines how fast the system reaches the steady state.
Some of the examples for the first order system are

A thermal system
A resistance-capacitor circuit
Liquid level in a over-head tank

Amount of heat liberated from the thermometer = mc p * dT/dt

Amount of heat gained by the surroundings = hA (T o T)
Hence at steady state
mcpdT/dt = hA (To T)
mcp/hA * dT/dt = (To T)
mcp/hA * dT/dt + T = To
From the above equation, we can see that time constant () = mc p/hA
Here,
mcp = Capacitance to store energy
1/hA = Resistance to heat transfer
Hence time constant = (Capacitance to store energy)*(Resistance to heat
transfer)
In general in one time constant the thermometer response decreases to

63.2% for one

95% for 2
99.5 for 5

In a first order system response is independent of the input step size.

Now in order to calculate time constant, if we integrate the equation involving
first order dynamics we get

0 Y f
Y

Y ( t )=Y 0
Solving this formula, we get, time constant as:

t
Y ( t )Y f
ln (
)
Y 0 Y f

Observation Table:
Temp
(oC)

t1

t2

t3

t4

tavg

T - Ts

100

85

95

4.78

5.47

5.12

4.81

80

90

9.62

10.97

10.15

9.27

5.045
10.002
5

85

14.97

16.5

15.6

13.85

15.23

70

80

20.37

22.58

20.87

19.12

65

75

27.21

28.96

26.5

24.46

70

34.8

36.66

32.99

29.94

20.735
26.782
5
33.597
5

65

41.59

45.08

41.28

35.53

50

60

49.92

54.8

49.84

42.15

55

59.95

67.75

58.95

51.72

40.87
49.177
5
59.592
5

50

70.71

80.63

69.15

60.47

70.24

35

45

82.2

80.15

71.25

95.75
113.7
8

92.71
108.8
8
126.7
9

83.29

82.115
95.897
5
111.66
5
132.52
5
154.34
25

30

40

94.86
111.8
4
129.8
3
156.3
9
176.5
5

35
30
25

134.9
158.6
1

151.4

94.17
112.0
2
130.8
1

75

60
55

45
40

25
20
15
10

ln(T Ts)
4.4426
51
4.3820
27
4.3174
88
4.2484
95
4.1743
87
4.0943
45
4.0073
33
3.9120
23
3.8066
62
3.6888
79
3.5553
48
3.4011
97
3.2188
76
2.9957
32
2.7080
5
2.3025
85

Observation Charts:

Temp Vs t
100

f(x) = - 0.99x + 99.97

R = 1

90
80
70
60
Temperature (oC)

50
40
30
20
10
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Time (sec)

ln(T-Ts) Vs t
f(x) = - 0.01x + 4.46
R = 1

4.2

3.7

ln(T-Ts)

3.2

2.7

2.2
0

20

40

60

80
Time (sec)

100

120

140

160

Conclusion:
The value of time constant was found to be equal to 86.08s.
Since this is an example of first order dynamics, when the value was plotted it comes as
exponential decaying function.
The time constant is calculated using initial slope method, by the first order equation and
steady state heat balance. From all these methods we got almost same result.
The error in results is mainly because of initial readings, initially the rate is too fast to
measure using stopwatch, so more reading were taken and average was taken for better result.