Cesium heat-pipe thermostat

In this paper the authors report a newly developed Cesium Heat-Pipe Thermostat (Cs HPT) with the operation range of 400 °C to 800 °C. The working medium is cesium (Cs) of 99.98% purity and contains no radioisotope. A Cs filing device is developed which can prevent Cs being in contact with air. The structural material is stainless steel. A 5000 h test has been made to confirm the compatibility between cesium and stainless steel. The Cs HPT has several thermometer wells of 220mm depth with different diameters for different sizes of thermometers. The temperature uniformity of the Cs HPT is 0.06 °C to 0.20 °C. A precise temperature controller is used to ensure the temperature fluctuation within ±0.03 °C. The size of Cs HPT is 380mm×320mm×280mm with foot wheels for easy moving. The thermostat has been successfully used for the calibration of industrial platinum resistance thermometers and thermocouples.