The Development of a Standard for Contact Transient Methods of Measurement of Thermophysical Properties

Contact transient methods, some of which are available as commercial forms, are now widely used worldwide for thermal properties measurements on broad ranges of materials used in physical, chemical, and medical applications. However, in many cases the claimed measurement uncertainty has not been substantiated while in others – especially for the multiproperty techniques – internal inconsistencies in measured and/or derived values are clearly apparent. Following recommendations of participants of two workshops held on the subject in Würzburg (1999) and Cambridge, Massachussetts (2001), NPL agreed to coordinate a task to develop a standard test-method for these techniques. This involved using inputs provided by a small group of individuals from organizations in several European countries and also taking note of comments from other interested parties via the internet during the course of the development. Details are provided on the resulting document, which takes the form of a generic standard containing appropriate details and related information common to all techniques. These sections include the scope, theory, summaries of method, basic apparatus and experiment, the influencing factors, specimen requirements, procedure, and recommended approach for analysis of the experiment and calculation of the results. In addition, there are six annexes, each of which contains additional information that applies to a specific technique. Finally, the document proposes a recommended approach for verification of a technique together with a list of appropriate reference materials having known values for one or more properties. The status of intercomparison studies will also be reported.