Pressure and Vacuum Measurement – 2 Day
- Start Date : 10 February, 2027
- Start Time : 8:00am
- End Date : 11 February, 2027
- End Time : 5:00pm
- Address : Garden 2, N Tower
No Schedule
No Schedule
Abstract
Making good pressure measurements from high pressure hydraulic to ultra-high vacuum requires knowing what gauge to use. Common gauge types include: ionization gauges, spinning rotor gauges, thermal conductivity gauges, capacitance diaphragm gauges, quartz bourdon tube gauges, resonant silicon gauges, MEMS, and piston gauges. However, knowing what gauge to select can save time and money along with prevent measurement errors. Even the best gauge, if used incorrectly can cause errors that cost time/money and can result in dangerous situations.
This two-day course will cover the fundamentals of pressure measurements from 10^-8 Pa to 10^+8 Pa, focusing on the selection and proper use of appropriate gauging technology for a given application. A survey of calibration techniques will be presented along with recommendations for obtaining best performance. Part of the class time will be devoted to set-up of a simple vacuum calibration system and a piston gauge calibration setup. This will enable hands-on learning of some of the gauges discussed in the course and give students an opportunity to participate in the system set-up and disassembly. We will also provide an overview of system design and construction including pumping systems, sealing, valves, fittings, and pressure lines. Attendees are invited to share their own pressure measurement and or vacuum system design problems for in-class discussion.
Jacob Ricker
Jacob Ricker, works at the National Institute of Standards and Technology where he develops state of the art vacuum calibration systems and conducts research into the next generation vacuum technology. Jacob maintains and operates the primary standard for pressure and vacuum measurement in the US and is responsible for calibrating pressure and vacuum gauges at NIST in the range of 10-3 Pa to 360 kPa. His research is focused on new vacuum measurement methods and improving the accuracy of commercial sensors. Currently, he is the lead designer on new team working to redefine how we measure pressure, temperature, and length. This team is creating a new primary standard using a revolutionary quantum measurement method. He has a B.S. from Penn State University in mechanical engineering and a M.S. in applied physics from Johns Hopkins University. He started at NIST as a student in 2001, however after graduation, he moved on to calibrate underwater acoustics at the Naval Surface Warfare Center before returning to NIST in 2010.
Chris Meyer
Chris Meyer has 30 years of metrology experience working at NIST, working in the areas of temperature, humidity, and pressure standards. He is an honor graduate of Haverford College and received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Afterwards, Chris came to NIST as a postdoc, where he and performed acoustic thermometry to obtain some of the most accurate thermodynamic temperature measurements ever made over the range 234 K to 303 K. He joined the NIST Thermometry Group (Now the Thermodynamic Metrology Group) in 1991. Chris’s first project in this group was to construct a facility to realize the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) over the low-temperature region (0.65 K to 84 K) using 3He and 4He vapor-pressure thermometry, gas thermometry, and platinum resistance thermometry. Since that time, he has worked in several other areas of thermometry, including wire thermocouples, digital thermometers, light-pipe radiation thermometers, and fluorescence thermometers. Chris has worked in the discipline of humidity since 2000. During this time, he helped develop the current NIST gravimetric hygrometer and the hybrid humidity generator (the US national standard for humidity). He used the gravimetric hygrometer to validate the performance of hybrid humidity generator and measure thermophysical properties of moist air and moist CO2). Chris has operated the humidity calibration laboratory since 2013. Recently, he spent 15 months working at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), helping develop a manometric system for determination of the amount fraction of CO2 in air. In 2017 Chris entered pressure metrology and he now oversees the NIST piston gauge calibration laboratory.