2010-Resistance of a Thermistor (Ye & Yao)
From McGill University Physics Department Technical Services Wiki
In this experiment, we determined the characteristic curve of a thermistors resistance with respect to temperature by fitting five sets of highly coherent measurement runs. We were able to maintain a high degree of accuracy in our data by measuring the two variables as directly as possible while avoiding intermediate steps. The approximation to a β-parameter curve clearly failed, as the thermistor was shown to exhibit a behavior closer to that described by the third order approximation of the Steinhart-Hart equation. The thermistor's resistance at room temperature is found to be 4.3(1)kΩ. The best fit curve for the resistivity vs. temperature relationship was found to be 1/T = A + B ln(R) + C ln(R)3 with A = 2.34(2) x 10-3, B = 6.8(7) x 10-6 and C = 162(3) x 10-6. As an extension to this project, we also determined the time constant of the thermistor to be t = 0.135(7)s.
