Research Information
- O.U.R. Research Program: Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP)
- Major(s): Mechanical Engineering
- Anticipated graduation year: 2022
- Title: Design and Development of a Versatile Thermal Conductivity Instrument
- Faculty Research Mentor: Dr. Ankur Jain
- Faculty Academic Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Abstract
Thermal properties are very important for understanding and optimizing the nature of heat flow in engineering systems. Even though these measurements can be done with commercially available equipment, it is desirable to build an instrument in-house to measure thermal conductivity, to provide design and operational flexibility. In this project, an in-house instrument has been designed and developed based on heat transfer concepts. The instrument’s goal is to find the steady state heat flux through a specimen when placed between two temperature regulated plates: one cooled and one heated. Calculations to solve thermal conductivity can be done with equations resulting from the two-thickness method, which involves measuring the same material twice, but at varying thicknesses. This instrument has the ability to measure the effective thermal conductivity of a specimen without a multitude of restrictions on the specimen’s dimensions.