Intelligent High Temperature Sensor with Silicon Carbide Diodes (SiC) for Industrial Applications in Hazardous Environments
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Coordinated by: Gheorghe Brezeanu

Other department members involved in this project: Cornel Andronache, Nicoleta Brănişteanu, Florin Drăghici, Gheorghe Pristavu,

Description:

The typical lifetime of a temperature sensor used in the cement industry is only three months due to the highly corrosive agents, vibration levels and thermal stress.
The project goal is to produce an industrial temperature smart sensor based on silicon carbide (SiC) diodes for usage in cement fabrication heaters, operating in the 20-400C range. The P4 partner, a well-known cement producer, is highly interested to use this high life time sensor in control equipments.
The chemical inertness in many media, even at elevated temperatures, make the SiC’s Schottky diodes suitable as temperature sensor.
SiC electronic devices have small capability to work in hostile environments at high temperatures if they cannot be reliably packaged and connected to form a system capable to withstand harsh environment conditions. As a result, package of high temperature sensors form factors can be considerably different from standard packages. A full electrically isolated package is designed and implemented.
The temperature smart sensor is based on SiC diodes sensor and a processing circuit(with amplifier and excitation scheme). The output voltage of this circuit is changed in a current using a converter. A linear dependence between measured temperature on SiC diode and 4-20mA output current is proved for whole temperature range. The sensor operates inside the furnace. For improving the noise robustness a specific probe to electrically connect the sensor to the processing circuit is designed and proved. The sensor will be calibrated in a cement factory. The temperature smart sensor based on SiC diodes is a premiere for Romania industry.
The original contributions of the project will be patented and published in ISI journals and will be also presented in SiC conferences. The experience and scientific results of each partner of the consortium (with specialists from all relevant communities: academia, research institutes and industry), are guarantees for the success of the project.