Investigation of thickness and density dependence of thermal conductivity of expanded polystyrene insulation materials

Analysis of thermal conductivity of different insulation materials is very important in applications for passive and nearly zero houses. This paper presents the measurements results of the thermal conductivities of expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation materials, with different thicknesses and air pore content. The measurements were achieved on pure (white) as well as graphite-enhanced (grey) EPS slabs, with a Holometrix type 2000 series heat flow meter after desiccating them in a Venticell 111 type drying apparatus to changeless weight. The densities of the white samples were varied from 10 to 26 kg/m³ (EPS types 30–200 and grey), furthermore both the white ones and the grey (14 kg/m³) samples with three different thicknesses (5, 8, 10 cm) were tested. In addition, experimental results for the density dependence of thermal conductivity at low densities are given. Thermal conductivity measurements of different white slabs in combination with grey slabs were executed also and the changes in the thermal conductivity values are presented.     

High-Temperature Thermal Conductivity Measurement Apparatus Based on Guarded Hot Plate Method

An alternative calibration procedure has been applied using apparatus built in-house, created to optimize thermal conductivity measurements. The new approach compared to those of usual measurement procedures of thermal conductivity by guarded hot plate (GHP) consists of modified design of the apparatus, modified position of the temperature sensors and new conception in the calculation method, applying the temperature at the inlet section of the specimen instead of the temperature difference across the specimen. This alternative technique is suitable for eliminating the effect of thermal contact resistance arising between a rigid specimen and the heated plate, as well as accurate determination of the specimen temperature and of the heat loss at the lateral edge of the specimen. This paper presents an overview of the specific characteristics of the newly developed “high-temperature thermal conductivity measurement apparatus” based on the GHP method, as well as how the major difficulties are handled in the case of this apparatus, as compared to the common GHP method that conforms to current international standards.     

Radiative heat exchange method for thermal conductivity measurement applying a perpendicular heat flow to a thin-plate sample: Principle and apparatus

To measure thermal conductivity of materials of low conductivity (0.1 to 1 W·m^–1·K^–1), a method using a specimen of small size (2×25×25 mm) has been developed. This method applies a well-defined, steady, and uniform heat flux perpendicular to the surface of a small plate sample of polymers or ceramics jointly by means of radiative heat exchange as well as by an areal heater on the sample surface and allows a reasonably rapid (5-min) measurement of thermal conductivity. This method of measuring conductivity is an absolute and direct measurement method which does not need any standard reference materials or information about heat capacity. The principle of the method has been demonstrated by constructing a measurement apparatus and measuring thermal conductivity of a few materials. The thermal conductivities of silicone rubber and Pyrex (Corning 7740) glass measured by the present method between 30 and 90°C are compared with recommended values.     

不同填料复配对尼龙6/石墨烯复合材料导热性能的影响

高分子材料的绝热特性极大地限制了其作为导热材料在工业中的应用。选用多层石墨烯作为导热填料,并分别与导热填料氧化铝(Al_2O_3)和碳化硅(SiC)复配,探究导热填料的复配对尼龙6(PA6)复合材料导热性能的影响。加入质量分数为3%石墨烯时,PA6复合材料的热导率为0.548W·m^-1·K^-1,相比PA6基体提高161%。通过调节石墨烯与Al_2O_3和SiC复配的比例以及复合填料量,PA6复合材料的热导率可控在0.653~4.307W·m^-1·K^-1之间,最高是PA6基体的20倍。为拓展石墨烯在导热材料方面的应用及PA6导热材料在工业上应用提供了有价值的实验依据。     

Thermal conductivity and density of toluene in the temperature range 273–373 K at pressures up to 250 MPa

New experimental data on the thermal conductivity and the density of liquid toluene are presented in the temperature range 0–100°C at pressures up to 250 MPa. The measurements of thermal conductivity were performed with a transient hot-wire apparatus on an absolute basis with an inaccuracy less than 1.0%. The density was measured with a high-pressure burette method with an uncertainty within 0.1%. The experimental results for both properties are represented satisfactorily by the Tait-type equations, as well as empirical polynomials, covering the entire ranges of temperature and pressure. Furthermore, it is found that simple relations exist between the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity and the thermal expansion coefficient, and also between the pressure dependence of thermal conductivity and the isothermal compressibility, as are suggested theoretically.     

Measurement of thermal properties of liquids with an AC heated-wire technique

An apparatus for the simultaneous absolute measurement of the thermal activity, thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, and heat capacity of nonconducting liquids with the AC heated-wire (strip) technique is described. The main advantage of this technique is that the temperature oscillations field can be confined around the sensor in a liquid layer thin enough to suppress the hydrodynamic currents. This leads to the elimination of the convective heat transport. Carrying measurements at different frequencies, the inertia of the sensor can be considered, and the radiative heat transport can be estimated for liquids with known optical properties. The apparatus was constructed and tested using six different liquids in a limited temperature range. The thermal properties of these liquids at 20°C are reported. The thermal conductivity data of toluene and n-heptane (recommended as proposed thermal conductivity standards) are given in the temperature range 10–40°C. Good agreement was found with data reported by other investigators at 20°C, but there is still a considerable discrepancy in the temperature coefficient of thermal conductivity.     

Dynamic Measurements of the Thermal Conductivity of Insulators

Measurements of the thermal conductivity of insulators that are commonly used in civil engineering are as a rule performed using Pönsgen??s guarded hot-plate method under steady-state conditions. Achieving these steady-state conditions is a time consuming and relatively expensive procedure. Therefore, the application of a method that is less time consuming and less costly to common building insulating materials is of interest. The method should also have the accuracy and repeatability comparable to that of presently used methods. One such method is the transient hot-wire method (predominantly used for liquids, non-Newtonian fluids, plastics, semi-plastics, and similar materials), a dynamic method that uses a very thin pure platinum wire that functions as a thermal source in combination with a temperature sensor that detects temperature transients. This article describes the application of the transient hot-wire method to most commonly used building thermal insulating materials. The transient hot-wire measurements of the thermal conductivity were performed on many building material samples. For the sake of comparison, the thermal conductivity of samples made from the same materials was also tested using the stationary Pönsgen??s guarded hot-plate method. This article describes the comparison and evaluation of the measurement results obtained from both methods as well as the estimation of pertinent measurement uncertainties. The results are presented in graphical and numerical form in tables and diagrams for each type of thermal insulator.     

Determination of Thermal Conductivity of Silicate Matrix for Applications in Effective Media Theory

Silicate materials have an irreplaceable role in the construction industry. They are mainly represented by cement-based- or lime-based materials, such as concrete, cement mortar, or lime plaster, and consist of three phases: the solid matrix and air and water present in the pores. Therefore, their effective thermal conductivity depends on thermal conductivities of the involved phases. Due to the time-consuming experimental determination of the effective thermal conductivity, its calculation by means of homogenization techniques presents a reasonable alternative. In the homogenization theory, both volumetric content and particular property of each phase need to be identified. For porous materials the most problematic part is to accurately identify thermal conductivity of the solid matrix. Due to the complex composition of silicate materials, the thermal conductivity of the matrix can be determined only approximately, based on the knowledge of thermal conductivities of its major compounds. In this paper, the thermal conductivity of silicate matrix is determined using the measurement of a sufficiently large set of experimental data. Cement pastes with different open porosities are prepared, dried, and their effective thermal conductivity is determined using a transient heat-pulse method. The thermal conductivity of the matrix is calculated by means of extrapolation of the effective thermal conductivity versus porosity functions to zero porosity. Its practical applicability is demonstrated by calculating the effective thermal conductivity of a three-phase silicate material and comparing it with experimental data.     

Experimental study of thermal conductivity of solid and liquid phases at the phase transition

An experimental method for the determination of the thermal conductivity of a pure material at its freezing melting point has been developed. In the present investigation. this method is discussed further by studying the effective thermal conductivity of the frozen as well as the thawed state of a wet porous material. and of solid and liquid benzene at the interface. The method involves the study of the transient propagation of the freezing or melting zone through the specimen as well as the steady state of the freezing melting process. The method makes use of the heat of transition as the heat flow, and it enables the interlace to act as a heat transfer surface, thus incorporating realistic features of the phase change process. Compared with data from the literature. the experimental results for benzene agree within 2% for the solid phase and within 3% for the liquid phase. when some precautions are made to avoid free convection. The experimental effective thermal conductivity of the packed bed is compared with data from a numerical analysis: the results agree within 4%, indicating that the method is applicable also for measurements on heterogeneous materials.Paper presented at the Twelfth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 19–24, 1994, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.On leave from Central South University of Technology, 410083 Changsha, P.R. China.     

金属反射型保温材料导热系数的测定

根据稳态法测量导热系数原理,设计了一套稳态导热系数测量装置,利用自动控制技术实现实验过程的可控性。通过与导热系数参比块的测量校对,该装置测量结果的准确度达到标准要求。并利用此测量装置对压力容器金属反射型保温层试样的导热系数进行了测定,测定温度在80～220 ℃范围内,测量误差小于1.3%,导热系数值由0.040 W/(m·K)变化到0.053W/(m·K)。     

双热流法测定低温真空下固体界面的接触热阻

本文介绍了低温真空下固体界面间的接触热阻机理,重点介绍一种采用双热流计法既能精确测量圆柱型又能测量薄片型试样间接触热阻的装置,该装置还能同时测量材料的热导率。同时,文中给出一些材料在低温真空下的接触热阻值。     

The Transient Hot-Wire Technique: A Numerical Approach

The measurement of the thermal conductivity of a fluid by means of the transient hot-wire technique so far has made use of an analytical solution of the energy conservation equation for an ideal model, coupled with a set of approximate analytical corrections to account for small departures from the model. For this solution to be valid, constraints were always imposed on the experimental conditions and the construction of the apparatus, resulting in an inability to measure the thermal conductivity of high-thermal diffusivity fluids. In this paper, the set of energy conservation equations describing the transient hot-wire apparatus is solved using the numerical finite-element method. Because no approximate solutions are involved, this provides a much more general treatment of the heat transfer processes taking part in the real experiment, removing all the aforementioned constraints. In the case of the measurement of the thermal conductivity of liquids (fluids with low thermal-diffusivity values), the numerical solution fully agrees with the existing analytical solution. In the case of the measurement of the thermal conductivity of gases, the present solution allows the extension of the application of the transient hot-wire technique to experimental conditions where the value of the thermal diffusivity of the fluid is high.     

A new dynamic technique for the measurement of hemispherical total emittance

A new dynamic technique for the measurement of thermal conductivity under development at the IMGC requires accurate values of heat capacity and of hemispherical total emittance at high temperature. Until recently, these data were provided by subsecond pulse heating experiments performed on the same specimens in the same apparatus. The pulse heating technique is the most accurate method for the determination of heat capacity at high temperatures, but because of various experimental problems, the accuracy of hemispherical total emittance determinations is limited to 5%. A new method for a more accurate determination of hemispherical total emittance is proposed, which uses the same experimental data available from thermal conductivity experiments. An analysis of the temperature profiles measured during the free cooling indicates that regions with high-temperature gradients (toward the ends of the specimen) are the best regions for thermal conductivity measurements, while regions with low-temperature gradients (at the center of the specimen) are the best regions for hemispherical total emittance determinations. The new measurement method and some preliminary results are presented and discussed.Paper presented at the Second Workshop on Subsecond Thermophysics, September 20–21, 1990, Torino, Italy.     

Thermal conductivity by a pulse-heating method: Theory and experimental apparatus

A new dynamic technique for the measurement of thermal conductivity at high temperatures has been developed at the IMGC. The specimen is brought to high temperatures with a current pulse; during cooling the heat content is dissipated by radiation and by conduction. The differential equation describing this process contains terms related to the heat capacity, the hemispherical total emittance, and the thermal conductivity of the material. If the first two properties are determined using the same specimen during subsecond pulse heating experiments, thermal conductivity may be evaluated by accurate measurements of the round-shaped temperature profiles established on the specimen during cooling. High-speed scanning pyrometry makes possible accurate measurements of temperatures and of temperature derivatives (with respect to space and time), which enables the differential equation describing the power balance at each point of the specimen to be transformed into a linear equation of the unknown thermal conductivity. A large overdetermined system of linear equations is solved by least-squares techniques to obtain thermal conductivity as a function of temperature. The theory underlying the technique is outlined, the experimental apparatus is described, and details of the measurement technique are given.Paper presented at the First Workshop on Subsecond Thermophysics, June 20–21, 1988, Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.     

Design and Validation of a High-Temperature Comparative Thermal-Conductivity Measurement System

A measurement system has been designed and built for the specific application of measuring the effective thermal conductivity of a composite, nuclear-fuel compact (small cylinder) over a temperature range of 100 °C to 800 °C. Because of the composite nature of the sample as well as the need to measure samples pre- and post-irradiation, measurement must be performed on the whole compact non-destructively. No existing measurement system is capable of obtaining its thermal conductivity in a non-destructive manner. The designed apparatus is an adaptation of the guarded-comparative-longitudinal heat flow technique. The system uniquely demonstrates the use of a radiative heat sink to provide cooling which greatly simplifies the design and setup of such high-temperature systems. The design was aimed to measure thermal-conductivity values covering the expected range of effective thermal conductivity of the composite nuclear fuel from 10 W . m⁻¹ . K⁻¹ to 70 W . m⁻¹ . K⁻¹. Several materials having thermal conductivities covering this expected range have been measured for system validation, and results are presented. A comparison of the results has been made to data from existing literature. Additionally, an uncertainty analysis is presented finding an overall uncertainty in sample thermal conductivity to be 6 %, matching well with the results of the validation samples.     

Calibration Method and Uncertainty Assessment of a High-Temperature GHP Apparatus

In this research, a calibration method of a high-temperature guarded hot plate (GHP) apparatus was proposed in order to improve the measurement accuracy of thermal conductivity. The measurement uncertainties of this GHP apparatus were assessed to validate the reliability of this calibration method. The temperature difference across the guarded gap was set as the bias value to eliminate the heat exchange over the guarded gap. The effects of the thermal expansion and pressure of the apparatus on thickness were investigated to revise the measurement results of in-situ thickness and meter area, respectively. The assessed uncertainty indicated that the related expanded uncertainty approximately increased with the increase in testing temperature and the calibration method should be valid in the temperature range. The contribution of each factor on the combined uncertainty showed that the temperature distribution in plane direction was the main factor in influencing the measurement of thermal conductivity.     

Measurement of thermophysical properties of metals and ceramics by the laser-flash method

Several recent advances made in the author's laboratory in the experimental apparatus and measuring procedures for precise measurements of thermophysical properties by the laser-flash method are reviewed. Heat-capacity measurement has been done on metals and ceramics within an accuracy of ±0.5% in the range from 80 to 800 K, and within ±2% from 800 to 1100 K. Thermal diffusivity has been also measured from 80 to 1300 K with reasonable corrections for heat leak and finite pulse width. As an example of the experimental results by the method, the data of heat capacity, thermal diffusivity, and thermal conductivity of vanadium-oxygen alloys containing 1.07 and 3.46 at.% of oxygen from 80 to 800 K are presented and compared with those of pure vanadium metal.Presented at the Japan-United States Joint Seminar on Thermophysical Properties, October 24–26, 1983, Tokyo, Japan.     

Thermal Conductivity of Molten Lead-Free Solders

The paper reports measurements of the thermal conductivity of a number of molten solders for the electronics industry that are part of a group of materials designed to be free of the toxic problems associated with lead-based solders. The measurements have been carried out with a transient hot-wire instrument originally designed for the measurement of the thermal conductivity of pure molten metals. In the application reported here the instrument has been used largely unchanged but an improved finite-element code has been used for the analysis of the raw data so as to yield the thermal conductivity of the molten solders. The measurements extend from the melting point of the solder up to 625 K. The uncertainty in the thermal conductivity measurements is estimated to be no larger than 3%.Paper presented at the Seventh Asian Thermophysical Properties Conference, August 23–28, 2004, Hefei and Huangshan, Anhui, P. R. China