Simultaneous measurement of thermal diffusivity and specific heat at high temperatures by a single rectangular pulse heating method

A method for the simultaneous measurement of thermal diffusivity and specific heat by a single rectangular heating pulse on a finite cylindrical specimen is described. The method takes into account radiation losses from all the surfaces of the specimen. The theoretical principle of the technique was studied by solving the transient heat conduction equation for a finite disk heated on the front surface by a single rectangular radiant energy pulse. An apparatus was constructed to comply with the theoretical conditions and was connected to a personal computer. Thermal diffusivity and specific heat were determined from the data obtained on the temperature response of the back surface of the specimen and from the theoretical results. This method can be applied to materials having a wide range of thermal conductivity values and has a good accuracy at high temperatures. Examples of the measurements are presented.Invited paper presented at the Ninth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 24–27, 1985, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

Suggestions regarding thermal diffusivity measurements on pyrolytic graphite and pyrolytic boron nitride by the laser pulse method

The laser pulse method can be successfully applied to the measurement of thermal diffusivity of isotropic materials subject to some assumptions. For anisotropic materials, this method is applicable to the measurement of principal thermal diffusivity only on the condition that there is no difference in direction between the principal axis and that of the temperature gradient. After analyzing the heat conduction process in an anisotropic solid, it has been shown that large errors in the measurement of thermal diffusivity would exist if the direction of the principal axis deviates inconspicuously from that of the temperature gradient. The experimental results of thermal diffusivity of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) samples with various deviation angles have been compared with the analytical results. The laser pulse method is not applicable to measurements on semitransparent pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN). We adopted a two-layer composite sample to measure the thermal diffusivity of PBN in the c direction and a particular graphite-PBN composite sample has been prepared which has a very low thermal resistance at the interface. The thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of PG (below 2300°C) and PBN (below 1000°C) are given.Invited paper presented at the Ninth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 24–27, 1985, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

Measurement of thermophysical properties of molten salts: Mixtures of alkaline carbonate salts

The purpose of this study is to develop measuring methods for the thermal diffusivity, the specific heat capacity, and the density of molten salts, as well as to measure these properties of mixtures of alkaline carbonate salts. The thermal diffusivity is measured by the stepwise heating method. The sample salt is poured into a thin container, and as a result, a three-layered cell is formed. The thermal diffusivity is obtained from the ratio of temperature rises at different times measured at the rear surface of the cell when the front surface is heated by the stepwise energy from an iodine lamp. The specific heat capacity is measured using an adiabatic scanning calorimeter. The density is measured by Archimedes' principle. Thermal conductivity is determined from the above properties. Measured samples are Li₂CO₃-K₂CO₃ (42.7–57.3, 50.0-50.0, and 62.0-38.0 mol%).Invited paper presented at the Tenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 20–23, 1988, Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.     

Measurement and evaluation of the thermal diffusivity of two-layered materials

Transient methods, such as those with pulse- or step-wise heating, have often been used to measure thermal diffusivity of various materials including layered composite materials. The aim of the present study is to investigate effects of various parameters on the measurement of thermal diffusivity when the transient methods are applied. Mainly a two-layered material in the pulsewise heating method is considered because of its simplicity and usefulness in identifying and determining the effects of the parameters. First, it has been shown that there exists a special condition for determining the thermal diffusivity of a component in the two-layered material whose other relevant thermophysical properties are known. Second, it has been shown that the thickness of the laserbeam absorption layer, which inevitably makes sample material into the twolayered material, may cause a relatively large error when the thermal diffusivity of the base material is high. Finally, it has been derived a definite relation between the apparent thermal diffusivity obtained from the temperature response and the mean thermal diffusivity, which has a physical meaning related to the thermal resistance.     

Thermal Diffusivity Measurements of Candidate Reference Materials by the Laser Flash Method

The National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ) in AIST has investigated the laser flash method in order to establish a thermal diffusivity standard for solid materials above room temperature. A uniform pulse-heating technique, fast infrared thermometry, and a new data analysis method were developed in order to reduce the uncertainty in thermal diffusivity measurements. The homogeneity and stability of candidate reference materials such as isotropic graphite were tested to confirm their qualification as thermal diffusivity reference materials. Since graphite is not transparent to both the heating laser beam and infrared light for thermometry, the laser flash method can be applied to graphite without black coatings. Thermal diffusivity values of these specimens with different thicknesses, were measured with changing heating laser pulse energies. A unique thermal diffusivity value can be determined for homogeneous materials independent of the specimen thickness, by extrapolating to zero heating laser pulse energy on the plot of apparent thermal diffusivity values measured with the laser flash method as a function of heating laser pulse energy.Paper presented at the Fifteenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 22--27, 2003, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

Evaluation of Thermophysical Properties of Functionally Graded Materials

In this work, by considering four-layered functionally graded material (FGM) specimens of Cu/Ni and PSZ/NiCrAlY, the transient characteristics and homogeneity of heat conduction media have been studied. The thermal diffusivities of the considered specimens have been measured by the laser flash method. As the temperature response curve of a FGM is very similar to that of a homogeneous material, it is difficult to distinguish a FGM from a homogeneous material by the shape of the temperature responses. Therefore, the thermal diffusivity obtained from the half-time method is usually taken as the corresponding value of the thermal diffusivity. The apparent thermal conductivity, obtained from the corresponding value of the thermal diffusivity and the average of the heat capacity of each layer, is different from the effective thermal conductivity, obtained from the sum of the heat resistances of each layer. As the values of the heat capacity of materials exist over a certain range, and the heat capacity distribution can be predicted when the materials in a FGM are known, the amount of error that will be caused when the effective thermal conductivity is replaced by the apparent value can be determined. Also, the heterogeneity of a FGM, based on an evaluation of thermophysical properties, has been discussed.Paper presented at the Seventh Asian Thermophysical Properties Conference, August 23–28, 2004, Hefei and Huangshan, Anhui,P. R. China.     

A New Technique for Hydrate Thermal Diffusivity Measurements

Thermal property measurements of natural gas hydrates in various sediment mixtures are necessary to describe heat transfer to surroundings during well boring and gas production. An apparatus for measuring thermal diffusivity in various mixtures of hydrates with sediment has been constructed. The apparatus uses a new method for determining thermal diffusivity that has advantages over the von Herzen and Maxwell probe method. The new experiment is simple and inexpensive to construct and appears to be much more accurate than the ±30% reported for an earlier probe. The thermal diffusivity of ice has been measured to determine the uncertainty of the technique, i.e., within ±6% with a 95% confidence level. The thermal diffusivity for pure methane hydrate at various temperatures is reported. Paper presented at the Fifteenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 22–27, 2003, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

A Novel Comparative Photothermal Method for Measuring Thermal Diffusivity

A novel comparative method has been developed at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to measure the thermal diffusivity of semi-infinite samples without a priori knowledge of the boundary conditions. It is based on photothermal radiometry, and involves the detection of modulated thermal radiance from a target irradiated by a modulated, focused diode laser beam with a power of 1W. The technique exploits the fact that the frequency response of the surface temperature modulation scales with thermal diffusivity for a given target geometry (this is a fundamental property of the heat diffusion equation). In the process two samples are measured, one of which is known, and the diffusivity of the second material is derived from scaling the results over frequency. Measurements on samples of platinum and Inconel have shown the validity of the methodology but also raised issues concerning the difficulty of accurate measurements due to surface coatings or roughness.Paper presented at the Fifteenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 22--27, 2003, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

激光脉冲法研究半透明PI/SiO_2薄膜的热扩散率

激光脉冲法在应用于测量对实验探测波段红外线半透明的材料热扩散率时遇到了困难。文中提出了新的解决办法:即通过对理论探测曲线进行分析,并通过在实际探测曲线上的升温幅度和特征点计算得到了热扩散率,成功地解决了这一难题。在-73℃~290℃的范围内获得了对激光和红外线都是半透明的聚酰亚胺(PI)薄膜的热扩散率,并研究了室温下PI/SiO2复合材料的热扩散率随SiO2含量的变化规律。     

Transient Coupled Heat Transfer in Multilayer Non-gray Semitransparent Media with Reflective Foils

In this paper, transient coupled radiative and conductive heat transfer in multilayer thermal insulation (MTI), which consists of non-gray semitransparent materials and reflective foils, is investigated for re-entry aerodynamic heating. The governing equation for combined radiation and conduction heat transfer in MTI is solved using a finite volume numerical method, whereas the radiative transfer equation (RTE) is solved using a finite difference method, in which the spectral scattering and absorption coefficients are determined using the Mie theory and the scattering phase function is modeled by the Delta-Eddington approximation. A comparison is carried out between numerical results for coupled heat transfer in non-gray MTI and those obtained by the two-flux model in which the medium is assumed to be gray. Finally, the numerical optimization of MTI is discussed.     

Theoretical considerations of the effects of rapid heating of solids on their apparent thermal properties

The conditions are investigated for thermal properties to change from their normal values when solids are heated very rapidly. The properties considered are specific heat, thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusivity. Over times which may be as long as a microsecond, the heated solid is unable to expand: the appropriate values of specific heat and thermal conductivity are then those at constant volume rather than constant pressure. In those alloys where thermal equilibrium requires diffusion, its establishment is delayed, and if solids do not have time to expand, the diffusion coefficient is reduced. For heating times below nanoseconds, the electrons and the lattice may be at different temperatures, particularly if the energy is initially imparted to the electrons. The temperature of the electron gas of metals may then approach the degenerary temperature. The apparent specific heat of a decoupled system departs from the steady-state value in a manner which depends on how temperature is measured. In such a decoupled system the concepts of thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity must be used with care.Paper presented at the First Workshop on Subsecond Thermophysics, June 20–21, 1988, Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.     

Use of a radiation diffusion model for determination of optical and thermal radiative properties of anisotropie silica fiber thermal insulation

A radiation diffusion model is used to describe radiation transfer in highly scattering anisotropic semitransparent materials. The transmissivities of the sample disks of silica glass fiber thermal insulation of different thicknesses and orientations were measured. The samples were cut from the same insulation slab. The axis of material structure symmetry was parallel to the axis of samples in one case and perpendicular to it in the other case. The effective absorption coefficient and radiation diffusion coefficient were obtained for three wavelengths of a probing He-Ne laser, namely, 0.63, 1.15, and 3.39 µm. The spectral hemispherical absorptivity and biliemisperical reflectivity as a function of the thickness of the plane layer are calculated and presented.     

A Relationship between Thermal Diffusivity and Finite Deformation in Polymers

The thermal diffusivity of elastomers (i.e., rubber-like materials) can change substantially with elastic finite deformation. Initially isotropic elastomers may be thermally anisotropic when deformed. Data from several experimental studies demonstrate significant changes in the thermal conductivity or diffusivity tensor with finite deformation. Formulating the thermal diffusivity tensor and deformation in terms of the reference configuration may aid in the development of constitutive relations by use of material symmetry. Illustrated here is a relationship between the diffusivity and deformation of representative materials during uniaxial and equibiaxial deformation. Each component of the diffusivity tensor appears to be related to the deformation in the direction of the component only. Paper presented at the Fifteenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 22–27, 2003, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

Experimental investigation of nonuniform heating and heat loss from a specimen for the measurement of thermal diffusivity by the laser pulse heating method

Nonuniform heating effect and heat loss effect from the specimen in the measurement of thermal diffusivity by the laser pulse heating method have been experimentally investigated using an axially symmetric Gaussian laser beam and a laser beam homogenized with an optical filter. The degree of error is theoretically estimated based on the solution of the two-dimensional heat conduction equation under the boundary condition of heat loss from the surface of the specimen in the axial direction and the initial conditions of axially symmetric nonuniform and uniform heating. A correction factor, which is determined by comparison of the entire experimental and the theoretical history curves, is introduced to correct the values obtained by the conventionalt _1,2 method. The applicability of this modified curve-fitting method has been experimentally tested using materials in the thermal diffusivity range 10⁻³ to 1 cm²·s⁻¹. The experimental error due to the nonuniform heating and heat loss was reduced to approximately 3%.     

Measurements of thermophysical properties by a stepwise heating method

An outline of the stepwise heating method for measuring thermal diffusivity and specific heat capacity of samples in both solid and liquid phases is described. The method is based on the measurement of temperature response at the surface of a solid sample when the other surface is heated in step-function. By making the best use of the characteristic points of this method, applications to samples in the liquid state, especially to high temperature melts such as molten salts, have been tried. As examples of measurement results, the thermal diffusivity, specific heat capacity, and thermal conductivity of zirconia brick and the thermal diffusivity of molten salts are shown in graphic form.Presented at the Japan-United States Joint Seminar on Thermophysical Properties, October 24–26, 1983, Tokyo, Japan.     

Recent development and applications of an optical method for measurements of thermophysical properties

The experimental determination of thermophysical properties has been greatly improved by the introduction of laser technology. The laser beam is used for sensing and also for heating (or exciting) the specimen. The advantage of using a laser beam is most strongly felt in the measurement of the thermal conductivity or the thermal diffusivity, which are some of the most difficult properties to measure. Interesting features of new techniques for investigating various aspects of thermal conductivity in fluids and solids are reviewed. An optical method, the so-called forced Rayleigh scattering method, or the laser-induced optical-grating method, has been developed and used extensively by the present author's group. The method is a high-speed remote-sensing method which can also quantitatively detect anisotropy, namely, direction dependence of heat conduction in the material. It was used for determination of the thermal diffusivity and its anisotropic behavior for high-temperature materials such as molten salts, liquid crystals, extended polymer samples, and flowing polymer melts under shear. Interesting applications of the method were demonstrated also for thermal diffusivity mapping and microscale measurement.Invited paper presented at the Twelfth symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 19–24, 1994, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

Measurement of thermal diffusivity by the flash method for a two-layer composite sample in the case of triangular pulse

A method for measuring thermal diffusivity in one of the layers of a two-layer composite sample has been described. The heat transfer problem of a two-layer sample associated with pulse thermal diffusivity measurements has been analyzed for two cases: exponential and square-wave pulses. According to our measurements, a triangular heat-pulse function approximates reasonably well the output of the Nd-glass laser. In this paper, an expression is derived for the temperature transient at the rear face of two-layer sample being subjected to a triangular heat-pulse input on the front face. The analytical solution of the problem forms the basis of our method of data reduction. This solution has been programmed for computer processing of the data. The method described here has been successfully tested by limited measurements on copper and iron.Paper presented at the Ninth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 24–27, 1985, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

应用在纤维隔热材料上的纳米复合材料涂层的研究

介绍了一种新型纳米复合材料涂层,它可以抑制热辐射在纤维隔热材料内的传播.在分析热辐射是金属热防护系统在再入过程中主要的传热方式的基础上,介绍了纳米复合材料涂层的工作机理并确定了纳米复合材料涂层采用TiO2/SiO2的叠层方式.采用改进的Sol-gel方法可以在纤维隔热材料上制备纳米复合材料涂层,并对采用改进的Sol-gel工艺制备的纳米复合材料涂层的隔热性能进行了比较,发现这种涂层的确可以提高纤维隔热材料的隔热性能,并根据工艺特点确定了目前纳米复合材料涂层采用3层(TiO2/SiO2/TiO2)叠层是比较合适的.     

Thermophysical properties of ice,snow, and sea ice

The paper reviews and discusses data and information on the thermophysical properties of ice, snow, and sea ice. These properties include thermal conductivity, specific heat, density, thermal diffusivity, latent heat of fusion, thermal expansion, and absorption coefficient. The available data are shown graphically for convenience in conjunction with the recommended correlation equations.Paper presented at the Second U.S.-Japan Joint Seminar on Thermophysical Properties, June 23, 1988, Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.     

Thermal Diffusivity Measurements in Fluids Containing Metallic Nanoparticles using Transient Thermal Lens

Thermal diffusivity measurements are carried out in nanofluids, solutions containing gold nanoparticles (~ 10–40 nm size), using the mode-mismatched dual-beam thermal lens technique. An Ar+ laser is used as the heating source, and an intensity stabilized He–Ne laser serves as the probe beam. This technique provides a reliable photothermal alternative for measuring thermal diffusivities of nanofluids and semitransparent samples. The characteristic time constant of the transient thermal lens was obtained by fitting the experimental data to the theoretical expression for the transient thermal lens. From this characteristic time, the fluid thermal diffusivity, which increases when the particle sizes increase was obtained. The size of the nanoparticles was obtained from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis.Paper presented at the Seventeenth European Conference on Thermophysical Properties, September 5–8, 2005, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.