The design of high-temperature thermal conductivity measurements apparatus for thin sample size

This study presents the designing, constructing and validating processes of thermal conductivity apparatus using steady-state heat-transfer techniques with the capability of testing a material at high temperatures. This design is an improvement from ASTM D5470 standard where meter-bars with the equal cross-sectional area were used to extrapolate surface temperature and measure heat transfer across a sample. There were two meter-bars in apparatus where each was placed three thermocouples. This Apparatus using a heater with a power of 1,000 watts, and cooling water to stable condition. The pressure applied was 3.4 MPa at the cross-sectional area of 113.09 mm2 meter-bar and thermal grease to minimized interfacial thermal contact resistance. To determine the performance, the validating process proceeded by comparing the results with thermal conductivity obtained by THB 500 made by LINSEIS. The tests showed the thermal conductivity of the stainless steel and bronze are 15.28 Wm-1K-1 and 38.01 Wm-1K-1 with a difference of test apparatus THB 500 are −2.55% and 2.49%. Furthermore, this apparatus has the capability to measure the thermal conductivity of the material to a temperature of 400°C where the results for the thermal conductivity of stainless steel is 19.21 Wm-1K-1 and the difference was 7.93%