Thermal Conductivity of Building Material Unit

A bench top accessory designed to allow students to simply and easily investigate the relative thermal conductivities of typical building materials. The uses a PID controlled flat plate electrical heater and a water cooled flat plate with an integral and highly sensitive heat flowmeter. The specimen under test is sandwiched between the heated and cooled plates and contained in a thermally insulated enclosure to minimize heat losses. The loading system supplied ensures that the same clamping force is applied to all specimens. The thickness of the test sample may be measured in situ using the dial indicator on the clamping mechanism. The heat flowmeter gives an output to a digital panel meter on the special control and instrumentation console. Special thermocouples are arranged to measure mean temperatures either side of the test specimen, allowing the temperature gradient across the sample and hence the thermal conductivity to be determined. This allows the formula relating individual thermal resistances and the overall thermal resistance of a stacked sample to be investigated. The unit allows the thermal resistance of samples to be determined and the measurement of samples connected in series (stacked).