Thermal properties measurement of dry bulk materials with a cylindrical three layers device

This paper presents a new method dedicated to thermal properties (conductivity and diffusivity) measurement of dry bulk materials including powders. The cylindrical three layers experimental device (brass/bulk material/stainless steel) and the principle of the measurement method based on a crenel thermal excitation are presented. The one-dimensional modeling of the system is used for a sensitivity analysis and to calculate the standard deviation of the estimation error. Experimental measurements are carried out on three bulk materials: glass beads, cork granules, and expanded polystyrene beads. The estimated thermal properties are compared with the values obtained by other measurement methods. Results are in good agreement with theoretical predictions: both thermal conductivity and diffusivity can be estimated with a good accuracy for low density material like cork granules or expanded polystyrene beads since only thermal diffusivity can be estimated for heavier materials like glass beads. It is finally shown that this method like all transient methods is not suited to the thermal characterization of wet bulk materials.