Created in COMSOL Multiphysics 5.

Measuring Thermal Conductivity Through the

Fl ash M e t h o d

This Application is licensed under the COMSOL Application License 5.3.

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About the Flash Method
The flash method is one of the most widely used methods for measuring the thermal
diffusivity of a given sample material. It was originally described by W.J. Parker et al. in
1961 (Ref. 1). This application reproduces the flash method experiment to estimate the
thermal conductivity of a sample with a known density and heat capacity at constant
pressure.
Sample dimensions,
material, and initial Gaussian laser
temperature pulse profile Graphics windows

Operating Results panel Solver tolerance

conditions and information
panel

EXPERIMENTAL METHOD
A thin sample material of height H0, about the size of a coin, is submitted to a laser pulse
on one of its faces. The laser pulse is assumed Gaussian in time and delivers a given heat
flux that is large enough to heat up the opposite face to around 1 K. The spatial

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distribution of the pulse needs to be as uniform as possible in the experiment. The present
simulation assumes perfect uniformity.
Gaussian laser pulse

Temperature elevation
at the opposite face

Figure 1: Flash method experiment.

The temperature rise at the opposite face is monitored to find the time of half temperature
rise, t1 2, used in Parkers formula for evaluating the thermal conductivity:

2
H0
k meas = 1.36976C p ----------------
2
- (1)
t1 2

The input options are grouped in four categories.

1 In the Material Sample section, specify the Sample height, Sample radius, and Material of
the sample.
2 The Gaussian Laser Pulse section configures the Heat flux and Standard deviation of the
flash.
3 In the Operating Conditions section, set the Ambient temperature and enable/disable the
convection and radiation effects via the Convection at sample boundaries and Radiation
at sample boundaries check boxes. When applicable, customize the values of the Heat
transfer coefficient, Surface emissivity, sample, and Surface emissivity, enclosure.
4 In the Computation section, set the Solver relative tolerance.

The following quantities are displayed in the Results panel after computation:

Maximum temperature rise, T

Time of half temperature rise, t1 2
Measured thermal conductivity, kmeas
Actual thermal conductivity, k
Relative measurement error, E, defined by:

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 k meas k
E = ----------------------------
k

LASER FLASH
In the Gaussian Laser Pulse section, you can customize standard deviation, , and the heat
flux, q0, of the Gaussian pulse distribution:

q0 1 t 5 2
f ( t ) = --------------- exp --- --------------- (2)
2 2

According to the ASTM E1461-13 standard, the duration of the pulse should be less than
2% of the time taken to reach the maximum temperature rise at the opposite boundary
(Ref. 2). For the default settings, the rear face of the granite sample takes about 0.45 s to
reach its maximum temperature value for a pulse duration of about 2 ms. In such a short
period of time, the heat flux intensity, q0, needs to be as much as 10 MW/m2 to increase
the rear face of a 2 mm thick sample to 1.8 K.

Figure 2 illustrates a typical profile for the Gaussian laser pulse.

Figure 2: Typical Gaussian laser pulse, with a mean point at 1 ms, standard deviation of
0.2 ms, and distributed heat flux of 10 MW/m2.

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HEAT LOSSES
Parkers original paper in 1961 (Ref. 1) considered the perfect thermal insulation of the
sample to find the analytical temperature field that leads to an estimation of the thermal
conductivity from Equation 1. This assumption is never achieved in real experiments. In
this application, you can also account for convective and radiative dissipation through the
sample boundaries in the Operating Conditions section. They require, respectively, the
knowledge of the heat transfer coefficient and surface emissivity at the boundaries.

The Embedded Model

The app relies on the theory given in Ref. 1 for the ideal case of zero heat losses from the
boundaries of the sample material.

MODEL DEFINITION
The thin cylinder of radius R0 and height H0, corresponding to the material sample, is
represented in a 2D axisymmetric model by an R0 H0 rectangle. It is placed in an
enclosure of 60 mm 20 mm that limits exchanges with the exterior and maintains a
homogeneous ambient temperature before starting the experiment.

The laser pulse of Equation 2 is applied uniformly at the upper face. Recall that, between
t0 3 and t0 + 3, 99.7% of the total heat flux q0 is delivered to the sample.

The sample is initially at equilibrium, that is, the temperature field is constant and equal to
the ambient temperature maintained at Tamb. After the flash, a temperature difference is
created with the surroundings, so that the boundaries of the sample are subject to
convection and radiation. For both the sample and enclosure, the heat transfer coefficient,
h (SI unit: W/(m2K)), and surface emissivities, s and e (SI unit: 1), are required in the
user interface.

RESULTS
The results presented below correspond to those for the default parameters (see Table 1).
TABLE 1: DEFAULT PARAMETERS.

PARAMETER SYMBOL VALUE

Sample height H0 2 mm
Sample radius R0 15 mm
Material - Granite
Laser pulse, heat flux q0 10 MW/m2
Laser pulse, standard deviation 0.2 ms

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TABLE 1: DEFAULT PARAMETERS.

PARAMETER SYMBOL VALUE

Ambient temperature Tamb 293.15 K (20 C)

Heat transfer coefficient h 5 W/(m2K)
Surface emissivity, sample s 0.9
Surface emissivity, enclosure e 0.1
Figure 3 shows the temperature profile obtained with these default values:

Figure 3: Temperature plot and half temperature rise.

The temperature values slowly decrease after reaching a maximum point due to convective
and radiative losses.

Table 2 summarizes the quantities of interest for the experiment.

TABLE 2: RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT.

PARAMETER SYMBOL VALUE

Maximum temperature rise T 1.84 K

Half temperature rise time t1 2 0.4424 s
Measured thermal conductivity kmeas 3.422 W/(m2K)

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TABLE 2: RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT.

PARAMETER SYMBOL VALUE

Thermal conductivity to find k 3.417 W/(m2K)

Relative error E 0.155%
When convection and radiation are neglected in the simulation, the heat losses disappear,
which is reflected in the temperature profile by a constant value after reaching a maximum
value. Figure 4 shows the temperature profile for the same default parameters, but without
accounting for convection and radiation.

Figure 4: Temperature plot and half temperature rise without convection and radiation.

References
1. W.J. Parker, R.J. Jenkins, C.P. Butler, and G.L. Abbott, Flash Method of Determining
Thermal Diffusivity, Heat Capacity and Thermal Conductivity, J. Applied Physics,
vol. 32, no. 9, 1961, pp. 16791684.

2. ASTM E1461-13, Standard Test Method for Thermal Diffusivity by the Flash
Method, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 2013.

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Application Library path: Heat_Transfer_Module/Applications/flash_method

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