Area 11
Metrology and secondary standards
A country without secondary standards can neither certify nor export. Fundamental physics with immediate industrial impact.
Context
Every certification, every enforceable standard and every industrial export rests on a chain of traceability to the International System of Units. Without accessible secondary standards (electrical, thermal, optical), that chain is broken and the testing laboratories we want to build carry no legal weight.
This is fundamental physics: definition of units, uncertainty propagation, interlaboratory comparison. And it is the existence condition of areas 2 and 6.
Open questions
What the literature does not settle
What minimal calibration chain (voltage, resistance, temperature, heat flux, irradiance) supports defensible SI traceability on an institute budget rather than a national laboratory one?
Are quantum voltage and resistance standards out of reach, and which alternatives (thermostatted Zener references, standard resistors) achieve what uncertainty over what drift period?
How do the temperature and humidity drifts of an unconditioned laboratory propagate through an uncertainty budget, and what correction is legitimate?
Solar radiation metrology: what calibration transfer procedure for pyranometers under a diffuse-dominated sky?
What statistical method establishes a robust reference value in an interlaboratory comparison with few participants?
Feasibility
The calibration chain is built step by step, quantity by quantity, each one anchored to a transfer standard and an explicit uncertainty budget.
Methods and facilities
- Establishment of traceable calibration chains and uncertainty budgets
- Electrical, thermal and optical transfer standards
- Study of instrumental drift in uncontrolled environments
- Interlaboratory comparisons and reference-value statistics
- Development of calibration procedures adapted to the humid tropical climate
Target outcome
Secondary standards and a traceable calibration capability, the precondition for any certification and any industrial export.
Simulated production chain
Calibration chain and metrology laboratory flowUncertainty propagation from the top of the chain to the field instrument, and laboratory throughput.Related areas
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