Response time of thermal flow sensors with air as fluid

Due to their fast response time miniaturized thermal flow sensors can be applied well for the measurement of instationary gas flow. For some applications, the response time of the sensor must be known with high accuracy. We investigated three methods for response time determination with air: a jump of temperature induced by electric heating, a gas velocity step made by a membrane burst and acoustic phase shifts between sound velocity and sound pressure (standing and traveling waves). The measurements have shown that the response time of thermal flow sensors is a function of flow velocity. For stagnant flow, the thermal response time is about 4.5 ms for our thermal flow sensors. With increasing flow from the heater to the thermopiles, the heat transfer rises. Thus, the response time is faster and decreases to about 1 ms. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.