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net: A Simple Pirani Gauge

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A Simple Pirani Gauge reading to 0.001 mB

Commercially available Pirani gauges seem to be unecessarily expensive. The
basic design consists of a simple coil of wire exposed to the vacuum to be
measured and connected as an arm of a Wheatstone bridge, with a meter reading
the out-of-balance voltage of the bridge. With suitably chosen components, the
out-of-balance voltage can vary with the pressure from about 10mB down to
0.001 millibars. Although commercial versions, albeit with some extra
sophistication, can cost over $2000, the instrument described here can be
constructed for one hundredth that sum and prove as useful in the laboratory as
its more expensive cousin.

Basic Principles of Operation

If a wire, surrounded by a gas, is heated electrically, heat is lost from it by three
processes: radiation, conduction and convection. The first of these is
independent of the the pressure of the gas and cannot therefore contribute to its
measurement although it gives rise to a constant loss of heat. Convection
contributes significantly at high pressures, but the heat loss caused by it is not
proportional to the pressure and in the ideal case, is independent of it.
Conduction of heat by an ideal gas is proportional to the pressure over a range
approximately lying between 10-5 mB and 10-2 mB. In practice, the variation of
heat loss from a hot wire with pressure can be exploited between 0.001 mB and
10 mB. The instrument described here operates in this range.

The Pirani Gauge Head

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The construction of the Pirani gauge head is

shown on the right. A glass envelope of
diameter 28mm is provided with two 1 mm
bore capillary inlets with wide openings as
shown. A filament structure comprising
0.7mm diameter stainless steel wire
supports F, welded to a stainless steel wire
coil E ( 0.1mm diameter wire, 56cm in
length, wound in an open helix diameter
8mm, resistance at 20 C of 24.6 ohms) was
supported by a short length of glass tube to
which the 0.7mm wires were cemented
using Ceramabond 569 (Aremco Products
Inc). The 0.7mm SS wires were cemented
into the capillary tubes using Araldite
standard Epoxy. ( Separate experiments
were conducted to examine the quality of
seal produced in this way. By applying
vacuum, the resin could be drawn down the
capillaries for about 20 mm prior to
hardening. It was found that cured seals
made in this way were sound at least to 10-5 mB pressure. A high vacuum epoxy is available which is capable of sustaining a
vacuum of 10-9 mB, but this was considered un-necessary in the present application.) After hardening the epoxy, the 28mm tube
was drawn down as shown and fitted with an inlet tube of 6mm OD.

The Pirani Gauge Controller

There are three modes of operation for a Pirani gauge:
(i)constant current, (ii)constant resistance and (iii)constant
voltage. The first is termed the Pirani-Hall Gauge and involves
feeding the wire filament with a constant current and measuring
the voltage across it, which increases with falling pressure as
the temperature of the wire increases. Option (ii) requires the
incorporation of the filament in a micro-calorimetric bridge
such that the current is varied automtically to keep the bridge

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balanced and the product of the voltage and filament current are
used to compute the power dissipation which is approximately
proportional to the pressure over the usable range. This
measurement mode is capable of the best precision, but involves
more complicated electronics and some computation to exploit
it. Option (iii) is the best for general purpose use and requires
only very simple electrical circuitry as the diagram shows. R1 &
R2 are 1 watt 100 ohm resistors which form the reference arm
of the bridge. Rs & R4 complete the bridge and R4 is adjusted
to give 0.66V out of balance voltage when the gauge is at 1
atmosphere pressure. This represents the lowest wire
temperature. As the pressure is reduced, the filament
temperature rises to about 500 degrees C at 0.001 mB, and the
out of balance voltage indicated by the meter falls to about
0.07V.

Operational Data
With the values of components shown in the schematic, Out of
balance voltages were measured against pressure using a
Vacuum Generators Pirani gauge type PIR 1A. The data are
shown in the table:

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PRESSURE

Vbridge percent FSD

log pressure

mB

mV

1000

660

100

570

86.36

0.8451

400

60.60

0.3010

0.4

340

51.51

-0.3979

0.2

260

39.39

-0.6989

0.1

210

31.82

-1

0.09

195

29.545

-1.045

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0.08

185

28.03

-1.0969

0.06

165

25

-1.2218

0.059

157

23.788

-1.2291

0.027

118

17.87

-1.5686

0.036

125

18.93

-1.443

0.010

110

16.7

-2

0.005

105

15.9

-2.3010

0.003

90

13.636

-2.522

0.001

70

10.606

-3

If identical values of components are used and the

specifications of the Pirani gauge head are carefully followed, the data in the above table can be used to produce a calibrated
scale for the 1mA meter. Below is a drawing of such a scale In use the adjustable resistor R4 is set to give the meter reading as
FSD at 1 atm pressure before pumping down the gauge.
Comparison with the commercial Vacuum Generators Pirani Gauge
and with a McLeod gauge showed that the instrument constructed
indicated a pressure within a factor of 2 of the pressures measured
with the other instruments across the range.

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