Due to an excellent temperature flattening ability, annular sodium heat pipes operating from 500 • C to 1200 • C have been widely used as liners for isothermal furnaces to provide uniform and stable temperature zones. In order to develop the capabilities to fabricate liquid-metal heat pipes, an apparatus for fabricating sodium heat pipes was set up at the National Institute of Metrology (NIM), China. In this paper, the newly developed fabrication apparatus, the detailed procedures for manufacturing sodium heat pipes, the sodium heat pipes, the constructed furnaces for realizing the aluminum freezing point, and their isothermal characteristics are described. The experimental results showed that the biggest temperature differences within 150 mm from the bottom of the thermometer well in an aluminum point cell placed in the sodium heat-pipe furnaces were better than 15 mK, when the temperatures of the furnaces were controlled at approximately 657 • C.

As the triple point of water is of great importance for the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) and for the definition of the unit of thermodynamic temperature, its long-term stability has attracted a great deal of attention. In a study of long-term stability, a mystery has been uncovered. Some triple-point-ofwater cells remain stable for many decades, while others decrease with increasing age of the cells, which is called long-term drift. To investigate this mystery, we used cells with different manufacture dates ranging from 1974 to 2002 and compared their analyses, which were done in 1984 and 2003. Using the same model of long-term drift as that used by Hill, the long-term drift rates of the two data sets are −4.7 µK · year −1 and −9.2 µK · year −1 , respectively. One is consistent with the observed depression of about −4 µK · year −1 measured by Hill, whereas the other differs greatly from Hill's result. In addition, corresponding factors influencing long-term drift are discussed in this paper.Keywords International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) · Long-term drift · Residual air · Solubility of borosilicate glass · Triple point of water

An investigation into the effects of isotopic composition on the triple point temperature of water has been carried out at the National Institute of Metrology (NIM), China, since redefinition of the kelvin with respect to Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (V-SMOW) was officially proposed by the Consultative Committee for Thermometry (CCT) in 2005. In this paper, a comparison of four cells with isotopic analyses and relevant results corrected for isotopic composition, employing the isotope correction algorithm recommended by the CCT, is described. The results indicate that, after application of the corrections, the maximum temperature difference between the cells drops from 0.10 mK to 0.02 mK and that these cells are in good agreement within 0.02 mK. Also, temperature deviations arising from isotopic variations fall in the range from −55.9 µK to +40.7 µK. We consider that the distillation temperature and degassing time of the production procedure lead to isotopic variations.

No abstract