HTHP Home • Issue Contents • Forthcoming Papers
Editorial
National Metrological Institutes: A series of overview publications
Every year all around the world a number of new materials are designed and developed for industrial and manufacturing purposes. Simultaneously the use of existing materials is also commonly extended to wider ranges of temperature and/or pressure, that is to more demanding conditions.
The design of manufactured objects – not only high tech products involves typically the use of commercially available software that requires data on materials, including thermophysical properties, as input. In case of new or extended-range materials the properties should necessarily be measured. This is an important task for the National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) which provide industrial users with a valuable service of property determination.
As a consequence of the emergence of new materials or of the extension of their utilization range, the NMIs are requested to continuously improve their property measurement capabilities and to develop new ones, which implies a real effort of research and development in metrology techniques.
In this issue HTHP starts publishing a series of papers devoted to the activities in Thermophysics of National Metrology Institutes (NMIs). The concept of this series emerged during the 18th European Conference on Thermophysical Properties in Pau, which was attended by delegates from several NMIs. Through informal discussions, involving the HTHP editors and the delegates, it appeared that it may be of mutual interest for the readers and the NMIs to publish a series of papers describing current capabilities of these institutes in thermophysical properties measurement, technological barriers, projects of development or extension of the measurement techniques.
It is intended to publish the series at the rate of one NMI paper per journal issue, instead of a special issue devoted to the subject.
The editors are very happy to be able to start the series in the current issue with a contribution from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB); they thank and congratulate the authors and respective institutions for their valuable contributions.