Thermoregulator

thermoregulator [¦thər·mō′reg·yə‚lād·ər]

(engineering)

A high-accuracy or high-sensitivity thermostat; one type consists of a mercury-in-glass thermometer with sealed-in electrodes, in which the rising and falling column of mercury makes and breaks an electric circuit.

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Thermoregulator 

(high-precision thermostat), a device for the automatic maintenance of a given temperature in a room, vessel, pipeline, or furnace.

The sensor of a linear thermoregulator operates by measuring the length of a sensitive element, which depends on temperature. A signal is fed from the sensor to an actuating mechanism, which regulates the supply of the heating agent. In thermoregulators used in refrigerators and desiccators, for example, the sensor is a bimetallic plate or coil. Upon a change in the temperature of the medium, the plate bends and closes the circuit of the electric actuating mechanism. The simplest volume thermoregulator is a mercury-filled contact thermometer in which the mercury closes the electric circuit of the actuating mechanism when a predetermined temperature is reached. Volume thermoregulators with a manometric sensor are also used. The signal from the sensor is fed to a mechanical, electric, or pneumatic regulator.

Thermoelectric thermoregulators, which use thermal resistors or thermocouples as sensors, usually operate in conjunction with bridges and potentiometers.

Thermoregulators are components of automatic regulation systems.