Cold Junction compensation:

3 System Design

(a) Figure Q3 shows a

system which utilises cold
junction compensation. Discuss
the importance of cold junction
compensation and illustrate
when it would and would not be
necessary to use cold junction
compensation.

It is intended that the

temperature of a liquid
electrolyte be monitored by a
thermocouple. The temperature
of operation is 2800C, while the Figure Q3
ambient temperature in the vicinity of the tank holding the electrolyte can vary between 100C-400C.
The desired output voltage must have a range of 0-300 mV. It is essential that the temperature
measurement is accurate to 10C. Given the data information in Table Q3a and Q3b, choose a
suitable thermocouple and chose suitable component values for Figure Q3.
[12 marks]

(b) Determine if the designed circuit using the components provided satisfy the specified
parameters. [13 marks]

Temp (0C) Type J TCO Type K TCO Type T TCO

(mV) (µV/0C) (mV) (µV/0C) (mV) (µV/0C)
-200 -7.89 21.8 -5.891 15.2 -5.603 15.8

-100 -4.632 41.1 -3.553 15.2 -.378 28.4

0 0.000 50.4 0.000 30.5 0.000 38.8
25 1.277 51.7 1.000 39.5 0.992 40.7
100 5.268 54.4 4.095 40.5 4.277 46.8
200 10.777 55.5 8.137 41.4 9.286 53.2
300 16.325 55.4 12.207 39.9 14.860 58.1
400 21.846 55.2 16.395 41.5 20.869 61.8
500 27.388 55.9 20.640 41.9
Table Q3a Type J, K and T Thermocouples. (TCO - temperature coefficient)

ADS21 Diff Inst.Amp. AD590 Temp. Sensor

Nonlinearity (±9 V) 0.1% Supply voltage - regulation 1% 10V
temperature coefficient 3 ppm/0C Output sens. 1µA/K
Input offset temperature coefficient 2 µV/OC Linearity <0.050C
temperature coefficient 75 µV/OC Power supply rejection 0.2 µA/V

AD580 2.5 Volt Reference

Voltage supply - regulation 1% 10 V Sensor Parameters
Line regulation 2 mV
Temp. sens. 25 ppm/0C

Table Q3b
Current divider 2 resistors in parallel fed by a common source.

From the requirement that the output is zero at 0OC (273K) the voltage produced by the current source and voltage
sources have to be the same.

273 × 10−6
FG RR IJ = 2.5FG R IJ
H R + R K H R + RK
A A

A A
−6
273 × 10 R = 2.5
R = 9.16kΩ

From the requirement that the sensitivity must be e.g. 51.7µVK-1

we can now solve for RA
RRA
10−6 = 51.7 × 10−6
RA + R
RA 51.7 R +R R 9160
= ⇒ A = = = 177.18
RA + R R RA 51.7 51.7
⇒ RA + 9160 = 177.18RA
9160
⇒ 9160 = 176.18RA ⇒ RA = = 51.99Ω
176.18