Parameter estimations for measurements of thermal transport properties with the hot disk thermal constants analyzer

The objective of this work is to improve measurements of transport properties using the hot disk thermal constants analyzer. The principle of this method is based on the transient heating of a plane double spiral sandwiched between two pieces of the investigated material. From the temperature increase of the heat source, it is possible to derive both the thermal conductivity and the thermal diffusivity from one single transient recording, provided the total time of the measurement is chosen within a correct time window defined by the theory and the experimental situation. Based on a theory of sensitivity coefficients, it is demonstrated how the experimental time window should be selected under different experimental situations. In addition to the theoretical work, measurements on two different materials: poly(methylmethacrylate) and Stainless Steel A 310, with thermal conductivity of 0.2 and 14 W/mK, respectively, have been performed and analyzed based on the developed theory. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(00)03006-9].