Investigation of thermal properties of pykrete

Abstract

Experimental investigation of the thermal properties of ice reinforced with sawdust is presented in this paper. Mechanical properties of pykrete are fairly covered in literature, while there are no data about its thermal properties. For the purposes of this examination, ice made of 215 ml of tap water was reinforced by adding 35 g of sawdust. Transient Plane Source (TPS) method was employed to measure the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity in a temperature range from -15 °C to -33 °C. Blocks of pykrete were placed in an expanded polystyrene (EPS) box in the freezer where the measurements took place. Thermal conductivity of pykrete was observed to vary from 1.64 Wm−1K−1 at -15 °C to 1.75 Wm−1K−1 at -33 °C while thermal diffusivity in the same temperature interval exhibited growth at a larger scale, from 0.88 mm2s−1 to 1.10 mm2s−1. Measured values showed an average decrease of approx. 21% in thermal conductivity and approx. 23% in thermal diffusivity when compared with results obtained for frozen pure tap water. Measured thermal constants were shown to be similar to the ones obtained in literature for concrete.