A thermopile, in which a number of thermocouple junctions are arranged on either side of a thin layer of insulation, is commonly used to determine the heat flux for steady-state measurements. Gauges using this method are available commercially and a new, generic calibration method is described here. For this purpose, an equation based on physical properties has been derived to determine the theoretical relationship between the measured voltage output of the gauge and the heat flux through it. An experimental rig has been built and used to calibrate gauges under steady-state conditions for heat fluxes between 0.5 and 8 kW/m². The gauge temperature was controlled between 30 and 110 °C, and voltage-flux correlation – based on the theoretical relationship – was determined using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). For tests with constant gauge temperature, there was a linear relationship between the voltage and heat flux; owing to the temperature dependency of the Seebeck constants of the thermoelectric materials, the voltage increased with increasing gauge temperature. In all cases, there was very good agreement between the measured and correlated values, and the overall uncertainty of the correlation was estimated to be less than 5% of the measured heat flux.

热电堆通常用于确定稳态测量的热通量，在该热电堆中，多个热电偶结布置在绝缘薄层的任一侧。使用这种方法的量具可商购获得，这里介绍一种新的通用校准方法。为此，已经导出了基于物理特性的方程式，以确定测得的量规电压输出和通过量规的热通量之间的理论关系。已建造了一个实验装置，用于在稳态条件下校准仪表，热通量在0.5至8 kW / m ^2之间。将仪表温度控制在30至110°C之间，并使用最大似然估计（MLE）确定基于理论关系的电压-通量相关性。对于在恒定仪表温度下进行的测试，电压与热通量之间存在线性关系。由于热电材料的塞贝克常数与温度的关系，电压随标称温度的升高而增加。在所有情况下，测量值和相关值之间都有很好的一致性，并且相关性的总体不确定性估计小于测量的热通量的5％。