Wildfire temperature probe

About
This senior design project's objective is to create the third generation of the Wildfire temperature probe. The device is buried in the ground before a wildfire passes through. The probe measures the temperature at different depths in the soil. This information is useful because the carbon released by the fire coats the soil and causes it to be water-repellent which can cause several problems.

Integrated vs. Non-integrated
Integrated: automatic cold junction temperature compensation and amplification for thermocouples.

Non-Integrated: requires retrofitting circuitry to accurately read information from thermocouples.

Material
Outer Case Material Design Decisions We choose stainless steel for our outer case material. We decided to use thin pipe for the reduced thermal conduction with less material. Also the thin pipe could be used because of the dig and place method. Stainless steel was chosen for its relatively low density and low thermal conductivity when compared to the other options. Titanium would have been a better option but was not very commercially available and we couldn’t find something to fit our needs.

Experiments

 * First fire test


 * Outer case test