Wildfire temperature probe

About
This design project's objective is to create the third generation of the Wildfire temperature probe. The probe is buried in the ground before a wildfire passes over, and 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.

Sponsor
The sponsor of this project is the USDA Forestry Service.

Problem Statement
The driving characteristics for the probe are size and weight due to the fact that they must be carried to the site.

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.

Outer Case Material
We chose 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