Long term stability and hysteresis effects in Pt100 sensors used in industry

A Pt100 sensor is under normal conditions a very accurate and stable sensor for temperature measurements. Two important factors that can have influence on the results are its drift during time and the hysteresis effect at temperature changes. Different types of Pt100 sensors will show varying sensitivity for these effects. This study includes a number of partially supported wire type Pt100 sensors mainly used as reference sensors at different industries and laboratories. For most of the sensors, there is a history of calibration data for several years. By using a dry block calibrator, the hysteresis effects of the sensors are measured in the temperature range 0 °C up to 500 °C, depending on the calibration range of the sensor. The suitability of the method is evaluated by measurements of the stability of the dry-block and the repeatability of hysteresis tests. The evaluation shows that it is possible to measure hysteresis effects above a few mK. The tested Pt100 sensors exhibits hysteresis effects of 20 m...