DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH TEMPERATURE PC BASED FOUR-PROBE ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY MEASUREMENT SETUP

摘要

An electrical conductivity measurement setup for measuring conductivity of solid sample pellets from room temperature to 1173 K in air or any other controlled atmosphere has been designed and developed. The four- probe technique is used for measuring the electrical conductivity. A constant current source which can deliver the current in the range of 0-500 mA, forces a fixed value of current through the sample. The sample is then heated with a programmable temperature controller at a required rate. The individual measuring circuit, measures the sample current, voltage drop between two fixed points of the sample and the sample temperature. These signals are then fed to the data acquisition system having microcontroller based hardware and windows based software, which is designed and fabricated in-house for continuously acquiring data. By knowing the voltage, current and dimensions of the sample pellet, the electrical conductivity of the sample is calculated at different temperatures.