VAC=1902=Susan=Venkatachala=BG

Vacuum 60 (2001) 153}159

Some considerations on handling the calibration results

of capacitance membrane gauges
Mercede Bergoglio*, Anita Calcatelli
Istituto di Metrologia Gustavo, Colonnetti del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IMGC-CNR), strada delle Cacce 73,
10135 Torino, Italy

Abstract

Capacitance diaphragm gauges (CDG) are widely used also as transfer instruments; consequently, they need to be
referred frequently to primary systems mostly in the (1000}0.1) Pa range where no other accurate gauges are available.
They must be characterized individually since a general rule on their metrological behaviour is not possible. Various
CDGs are calibrated at IMGC for the Italian Accreditation Service. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate that,
for each gauge and after the "rst calibrations, it is possible to arrive at an equation which represents the calibration
coe$cient as a function of pressure and is based on a reduced number of experimental points; as a consequence the time
for a complete calibration procedure is cut down. One of the four gauges we examined, for which many calibration curves
were available, was considered for a complete evaluation; then the evaluation model was applied to other
gauges.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction connected with a growing demand for well-de"ned

As a general rule, a calibration certi"cate pro-
vides the means for correcting gauge readings to get
the best information on the quantity being mea-
sured. In addition, a certi"cate should make the
users con"dent about the gauge-calibration system
reliability. This makes the laboratory issuing the
certi"cate considerably responsibile for:
E calibration procedure
E uncertainty evaluation method
E calibration data treatment.
These three items are becoming more and more
important with the increasing need for transfer
gauges by accredited or non-accredited laborator-
ies. The reason for the present paper is, in fact,
* Corresponding author.
and well-characterized transfer standards.
Since systems which are primary references for
vacuum measurements cannot be moved to per-
form in-situ calibrations, there is a general need for
gauges which are easier to handle but still as accu-
rate as possible. For vacuum measurements, the
following secondary instruments have been used or
are considered as transfer gauges:
E capacitance membrane gauges (CDG) [1,2]
E spinning rotor gauges (SRG) [3,4]
E ionization gauges (IG) [5,6].
In our experience, the more precise and more fre-
quently required measurements are in the pressure
range of CDGs, which are commercially available
with various full scales (from 10 to 10 Pa) and
with di!erent accuracies. The most accurate CDGs
are considered as transfer gauges and are the sub-
ject of the present paper. For the best of these

0042-207X/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 4 2 - 2 0 7 X ( 0 0 ) 0 0 3 6 9 - 9
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154 M. Bergoglio, A. Calcatelli / Vacuum 60 (2001) 153}159

gauges the manufacturers state an accuracy value
in the range of 5;10\ [7] and even readings as
low as 2;10\ for some of them. However, it is not
clear how the uncertainty had been evaluated [8];
probably long-term instability was not considered,
since the experience acquired in our own [9] and
other primary laboratories [1] has shown that cal-
ibration data may change as much as several parts
in 10 and that it is really di$cult to establish
a common rule not only for gauges in general but
also for the same gauge, metrological behaviour is
dependent on the individual gauge history.
Most of the papers on CDGs deals with the
thermal transpiration e!ect introducing factors re-
lated to the mass of the gas used [9,10] and con-
sider the non-linear response of sensors which are
based on the deformation of a thin membrane un-
der pressure, so that a linear interpolation of their
output over the full pressure range does not repres-
ent their real behaviour. On this basis and in con-
nection with the cost of the gauges and of their
calibration, we have focused our attention on the
treatment of the calibration data that may intro-
duce additional uncertainty or may even be sources
of errors.
Calibrations of CDGs are time consuming irre-
spective of whether they are under temperature
control or not. Several pressure values must be
generated, to enable us to give to a gauge a calib-
ration factor which is a function of the pressure.
At IMGC, several gauges from di!erent manu-
facturers are frequently calibrated; many calib-
ration data concerning four of them have been
collected over the years and the data treated by
"tting the experimental values to enable users to
easily correct the readings of their gauges.
In the present paper four gauges (10 and 10 Pa
full scale) from two di!erent manufacturers are
considered with the aim of:
E trying to "nd out a general behaviour at least on
the same gauge, if not subjected to inappropriate
handling;
E "nding the "tting curve ensuring a continuity of
gauge reading corrections and therefore gauge
reliability;
E trying to reduce the number of calibration points
without signi"cantly decreasing accuracy.
2. Experimental procedure
Three gauges (B,C,D) of the four CDGs con-
sidered belong to the same manufacturer, while
only one (A) was produced by another factory.
They have the general characteristics shown in
Table 1.
All the gauges were operated with their own
control and measuring units and were continuously
temperature-controlled by their heating system.
The normally adopted procedure consists of cali-
brating gauges in nitrogen atmosphere against the
IMGC static expansion system [11], whose work-
ing ranges and related uncertainty values are
quoted in Table 2.
Calibrations are usually repeated on three di!er-
ent days and every other year, or more frequently.
Table 2
Pressure ranges and standard uncertainty for the IMGC static
system
Pressure range (Pa) Standard uncertainty
0.1}1 2.0;10\;p#1.5;10\
1}10 6.8;10\;p#1.4;10\
10}1000 8.3;10\;p#7.0;10\

Table 1
Types of the considered gauges

Gauge Full scale (Pa) Type

A 1000 Di!erential used as absolute

B 100 Di!erential used as absolute
C 100 Di!erential used as absolute
D 1000 Absolute
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M. Bergoglio, A. Calcatelli / Vacuum 60 (2001) 153}159 155

Fig. 1. Calibration results for the four gauges over three years at various pressure values: calibration factor vs. pressure: (a) gauges
A and D , (b) gauges B * and C .

At least "ve pressure values are generated in each
pressure decade and the corresponding gauge read-
ings are collected. At pressures of 0.1, 1 Pa and at
full scale the calibrations are repeated ten times to
evaluate short-term experimental repeatability. To
represent the correction to be applied to the gauge
by users, the calibration factor is calculated
(F"gauge reading/generated pressure), then
F values are "tted as a function of the pressure; the
uncertainty component due to the mathematical
model is included in the "nal uncertainty evalu-
ation.
3. Results and data treatment
Fig. 1 shows all the experimental data for the
four considered gauges calibrated on di!erent days
and years; in addition, the best curves of F versus
pressure for each gauge are plotted.
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156 M. Bergoglio, A. Calcatelli / Vacuum 60 (2001) 153}159

Fig. 2. Transducer A: "tting curves compared with the experimental data: (a) over each pressure decade (polynomials),
(b) over total range from Eq. (1), (c) over total range from Eq. (2). at the beginning, * one year later, two years
later.
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M. Bergoglio, A. Calcatelli / Vacuum 60 (2001) 153}159
As regards gauge (A), calibrated at di!erent times
since 1996, various "tting procedures were applied
starting from our usual one, which was based on
treating the data over each pressure decade separ-
ately by a simple polynomial curve (F"a#bx#
cx). This procedure proved to be incorrect due to
discontinuities at the `interfacea between decades,
which may not be negligible and are as high as
a few percent, as will be shown later. In addition,
the number of the calibration pressure values ought
to be considerably high, if reliable "tting is to be
obtained. Two other "tting methods were con-
sidered by starting from the experimental values
F as functions of the pressure:
(1) a polynomial ratio such as
A#Bx#Cx#Dx#2
F" , (1)
1#Ax#Bx#Cx#2
(2) a continuous function such as
a!d
F" #d. (2)
1#(x/c)@
In both equations x denotes the gauge reading.
Under ideal conditions, at very low pressure
(molecular regime) F tends to be equal to the
square root of the ratio of the gauge temperature to
that of the calibration chamber and, at full scale, it
tends to one. These two limits should coincide with
the limits of the "tting functions which are, respec-
tively, the constants A (x"0) and the ratio of the
coe$cients having highest power exponents
(x"R) for curve (1) and a (x"0) and d (x"R)
for curve (2). A possible di!erence between the
values of the two sets of constants and their ideal
condition values is due to the initial calibration
when the gauge scale was made.
Fitting and the related controls were (and are)
performed by means of commercially available
software; obviously, the "tting procedure continues
until the best value of the correlation coe$cient is
obtained. Each calibration cycle was treated separ-
ately with the aim of "nding out possible discrepan-
cies among the various cycles. This method was
also a check of the experimental data. All the "tting
curves concerning the same gauge which are based
157
on the various calibration cycles performed in dif-
ferent years are shown in Fig. 2 and are compared
with experimental data. The curves show that "t-
ting over separate decades (Fig. 2a) is not appropri-
ate to correctly represent all the experimental data
unless the number of calibration points is consider-
ably increased. For type (1) "tting, ratios of various
polynomials were considered from the second to
the "fth or sixth order. The low-pressure limits of
the ratios of the lower-order polynomials do not
tend to the previously de"ned constant values.
Hence a high-degree polynomial ratio must be
chosen, the number of the exponents depending on
the overall pressure range considered.
Fig. 2b refers to the curves obtained from Eq. (1)
where up to the sixth degree even polynomials were
chosen as the number of available experimental
values was su$cient high; the polynomial ratio
represents the best "ttings of this type, on the basis
of the best standard deviation values. The two types
of "tting curves (Figs. 2b and 2c) apparently show
a comparable behaviour, other considerations must
be added to decide which of them better represents
the experimental situation. The polynomial ratio
curves (Fig. 2b) do not always approach the ideal
behaviour represented by the curves in Fig. 1a,
whereas curves from Eq. (2) follow (Fig. 2c) con-
tinuously the experimental ideal curve.
Since high-precision mechanical sensors are fre-
quently employed as transfer gauges, the "tting
curves given to the users (i.e. accredited laborator-
ies) must be the best representation of a gauge
behaviour, and consequently, any pressure value
should be evaluated with acceptable uncertainty;
on the other hand, a primary laboratory needs to
reduce the number of calibration points to decrease
the calibration time. In addition, a good choice of
the "tting curve o!ers the possibility of controlling
the overall reliability of experimental data; in fact,
some calibration cycles show points which are evi-
dently outside the regular curves, such points can-
not be refused a priori without checking the whole
curve and also considering the previous history of
the gauge.
A reduction of the number of experimental
points was considered only for type (2) curves; as
shown in Fig. 3, a reduction of the experimental
points by about 50% gives an approximately
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158 M. Bergoglio, A. Calcatelli / Vacuum 60 (2001) 153}159

Fig. 3. In#uence of the number of experimental points on the "tting curves, Eq. (2): (*) all experimental points, (- - - - -) reduction of
experimental points by about 50%, (***) further reduction by 45%.

Table 3
Main characteristics of the considered CDGs

Gauge Pressure Short-term repeatability Long-term repeatability Fitting Combined uncertainty

range (Pa) model

0.1}1 2.0;10\}2.2;10\ 4.0;10\}3.6;10\ 4.6;10\}4.2;10\

A 1}10 2.2;10\}2.0;10\ 3.6;10\}2.0;10\ 1.0;10\ 4.2;10\}2.4;10\
10}1000 2.0;10\}4.5;10\ 2.0;10\}1.8;10\ 2.4;10\}2.2;10\
B 0.1}1 2.0;10\}2.0;10\ 1.5;10\}1.0;10\ 6.0;10\ 1.5;10\}1.0;10\
1}100 2.0;10\}2.0;10\ 1.0;10\}2.0;10\ 1.0;10\}2.0;10\
C 0.1}1 5.0;10\}2.8;10\ 6.0;10\}6.0;10\ 1.0;10\ 6.4;10\}6.4;10\
1}100 2.8;10\}7.6;10\ 6.0;10\}1.2;10\ 6.4;10\}1.7;10\
0.1}1 5.7;10\}2.0;10\ 6.6;10\}2.7;10\ 7.0;10\}4.0;10\
D 1}10 2.0;10\}2.0;10\ 2.7;10\}2.5;10\ 2.0;10\ 4.0;10\}3.0;10\
10}1000 2.0;10\}8.0;10\ 2.5;10\}1.0;10\ 3.0;10\}2.0;10\

3;10\ shift of the curve (2) from the experimental
data. With a further 45% reduction the shift is still of
magnitude a few parts in 10. In addition, if the ex-
perimental pressure levels are appropriately chosen,
the shift of the curves from Eq. (2) can signi"cantly
be reduced without departing too much from the
ideal behaviour. The reduction of the calibration
points may be considered valid only for gauges
which were never subjected to any kind of shock and
whose "rst calibration curves are well known.
On the basis of the foregoing considerations,
function (2) seems, at present, to be one of the best
of our experimental data "tting ways and able to
guarantee the continuity of the calculated function;
in addition, it does not need sophisticated calcu-
lation for the users. This type of curve "ts accurate-
ly experimental data when both pascal and millibar
pressure units are used.
Our experience on gauge A enabled us to treat
all the other gauges in the same way; a complete
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M. Bergoglio, A. Calcatelli / Vacuum 60 (2001) 153}159
metrological characterization was thus
formed.
4. Metrological characteristics
Once the gauges are calibrated and their calib-
ration factors are de"ned, the best curves "tting the
experimental data and their metrological charac-
teristics may be de"ned, including the uncertainty
values [12] which take all the factors into account:
resolution, short- and long-term repeatability, stan-
dard deviation of the "tting curve and uncertainty
of a primary device.
The main characteristics are summarized in
Table 3.
Hysteresis was not evaluated since, in the present
case, the gauges were calibrated only with ascend-
ing pressure which corresponds to the working
conditions of a static expander. The hysteresis com-
ponent is therefore not included in the combined
uncertainties.
5. Conclusions
At present several data are available on CDGs
and their behaviour is known even if a general rule
cannot be de"ned. Their stability is considerably
far from that stated by the manufacturers. Calib-
ration curves are needed to employ such instru-
ments as transfer gauges over the full range in
which they are calibrated without discontinuities.
The number of pressure calibration levels in a pri-
mary laboratory may be considerably reduced
(even 50%) by increasing the uncertainty value by
159
per- not more than 1;10\ by a carefully chosen inter-
polation curve. A good choice of the interpolation
curve will increase the reliability of the pressure
values that are calculated for readings not corre-
sponding exactly to the experimental points even if
the number of pressure points is not reduced.
To conclude, on the one hand, the use of a curve
makes it easier for the users to treat the data and on
the other hand, by its use, it is possible to evaluate
transducer repeatability which could be di$cult to
calculate only from the experimental points, as it is
not possible to generate several times the same
pressure in primary devices such as static expan-
ders.
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