Patent ID: 6945691

Claim:
A method for determining by inference a first temperature T 1 in a first thermal region, comprising the steps of: a) providing a thermally-conductive element having a known length D and extending said element into said first thermal region such that an exposed first end of said element is at said first temperature T 1 to be inferred; b) extending said conductive element from said first thermal region into a second region having a second temperature T 2 such that an exposed second end of said element is at said second temperature T 2 , wherein said thermally-conductive element is covered with an insulative covering and extends substantially the entire length between said first and second thermal regions; c) determining said second temperature T 2 ; d) determining a third temperature T 3 at a known distance D n along said element from said second region; e) establishing an ideal linear relationship between said first temperature T 1 and said third temperature T 3 from the relationship T 1 =[( D/D n )( T 3 −T 2 )]+ T 2 ; f) establishing an actual relationship between said first temperature T 1 and said third temperature T 3 by maintaining said second temperature T 2 at a constant temperature, imposing known values of said first temperature T 1 , and measuring said third temperature T 3 ; g) comparing said ideal linear relationship with said actual relationship to determine non-linearity characteristics of the actual relationship and h) calculating said first temperature T 1 using the actual relationship, and compensating the calculated first temperature T 1 to remove the non-linearity characteristics.