Thermal properties of multiphase polymeric materials and dynamic methods for their characterization

Abstract

The thermal conductivity, diffusivity and specific heat of multi phase polymeric materials such as polystyrene and polymethylmethacrylate are reported. With emphasis on the thermal properties of such materials, a variety of implementation and classification regarding heat conduction will be highlighted. These properties were measured using dynamic methods namely; the transient plane source named also Gustafsson probe (TPS), the dynamic plane source (DPS) and the pulse transient technique (PTT), for measurements of thermal effusivity, thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat of solids One of the advantages considering these techniques is the possibility to extract all thermophysical parameters, the thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat from one single transient recording. Dynamic methods use a probe that is technically a resistive element, as the heat source. The first two TPS and DPS employ this probe as both heat source and temperature sensor. The later method PTT, for temperature sensing, uses a thermocouple placed apart of the heat source. A description of the main features and the principles on which these methods are based will be highlighted.