volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

To ensure adequate ventilation, radiosonde temperature sensors are typically mounted on top of the device and directly exposed to solar radiation. However, this configuration makes the sensors highly susceptible to radiation-induced errors, which can significantly compromise temperature measurement accuracy. This study proposes a four-wire structural design for the radiosonde temperature sensor and evaluates its performance through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The radiosonde follows a helical ascent trajectory, which causes the incident solar radiation on the sensor to vary continuously. This continuous variation makes the quantification and correction of radiation errors more difficult. The proposed four-wire design achieves favorable radiative thermal balance in three-dimensional space. It also demonstrates low sensitivity to changes in the ascent trajectory. This characteristic allows the correction model to be simplified by neglecting variations in the incident radiation direction. A coupled flow-structure thermal analysis is conducted under varying environmental conditions, including altitude, ascent velocity, and solar radiation intensity, to quantify the radiation error of the four-wire sensor. A neural network algorithm is then trained on the simulation data to develop a radiation error correction model. Experimental validation is performed using a platform comprising a full-spectrum solar simulator and a low-pressure wind tunnel. The experimental results yield a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.159 K, mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.143 K, and correlation coefficient of 0.962 between simulated and corrected radiation errors, demonstrating the high accuracy of the proposed correction algorithm.} After correction, the average radiation error of the four-wire sensor decreases from 0.446 K to 0.143 K, substantially improving temperature measurement accuracy.

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Ms. Yutong Liu

Ms. Renhui Ding

Mr. Zhengjie Ying

Mr. Jiale Jiang