Title page for ETD etd-110498-120720

Type of Document

Master's Thesis

Author

Sorensen, Ira Joseph

Author's Email Address

iras@vt.edu

URN

etd-110498-120720

Title

Analytical and Experimental Characterization of a Linear-Array Thermopile Scanning Radiometer for Geo-Synchronous Earth Radiation Budget Applications

Degree

Master of Science

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name	Title
Mahan, James Robert	Committee Chair
Priestley, Kory J.	Committee Member
Vick, Brian L.	Committee Member

Keywords

Earth radiation budget
thermopile radiation detectors
radiometry

Date of Defense

1998-11-30

Availability

unrestricted

Abstract

The Thermal Radiation Group, a laboratory in the department
of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University, is currently working towards the development of
a new technology for cavity-based radiometers. The radiometer
consists of a 256-element linear-array thermopile detector
mounted on the wall of a mirrored wedge-shaped cavity.
The objective of this research is to provide analytical and
experimental characterization of the proposed radiometer. A
dynamic end-to-end opto-electrothermal model is developed to
simulate the performance of the radiometer. Experimental results
for prototype thermopile detectors are included. Also
presented is the concept of the discrete Green's function to
characterize the optical scattering of radiant energy in the
cavity, along with a data-processing algorithm to correct for the
scattering. Finally, a parametric study of the sensitivity of the discrete
Green's function to uncertainties in the surface properties of the
cavity is presented.

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