Cycle Heat Flow Method For The Determination Of Metals And Alloys Thermal Conductivity Study

Thermal conductivity is one of the most important parameters of thermophysical properties of materials. A classical thermal conductivity measurement method, named periodic heating measuring technique, has been developed in this research.According to some literatures, an analytical solution for this measurement has been proposed, and the formula to compute thermal conductivity has been conducted. Based on the result above, the formulas of two traditional analytical solutions have been modified.Although great efforts have been made by many researchers, it is usually very hard to obtain standard sine temperature waves in experiments by using this measuring technique, and this will cause errors. To solve this issue, a measuring system has been developed by employing modem electrical facilities and data acquisition apparatus. Standard sine temperature waves have been achieved in experiments, and errors have been decreased.Numerical simulation technique has also been adopted in this research. The advantages making use of this technique are as follows, (i) The design of the measuring system was simplified, (ii) The detennination time was saved, (iii) The error was decreased.Thermal conductivities of several samples have been determined, and the results showed that the maximum error by adopting analytical solution and numerical simulation were less than 4% and 3% respectively. It approved that it was reliable to determine thermal conductivities of metals and alloys by using this measuring system, and it also showed that it was an effective way to study heat conduction problems by experimental study combined with theory analysis and numerical simulation.