New contactless method for thermal diffusivity measurements using modulated photothermal radiometry

Modulated photothermal radiometry is a non-destructive and contactless technique for the characterization of materials. It has two major advantages: a good signal-to-noise ratio through a synchronous detection and a low dependence on the heating power and the optical properties of the sample surface. This paper presents a new method for characterizing the thermal diffusivity of a material when the phase shift between a modulated laser power signal and the thermal signal of a plate sample is known at different frequencies. The method is based on a three-dimensional analytical model which is used to determine the temperature amplitude and the phase in the laser heating of the plate. A new simple formula was developed through multi-parametric analysis to determine the thermal diffusivity of the plate with knowledge of the frequency at the minimum phase shift, the laser beam radius r0 and the sample thickness L. This method was developed to control the variation of the thermal diffusivity of nuclear components and it was first applied to determine the thermal diffusivity of different metals: 304 L stainless steel, nickel, titanium, tungsten, molybdenum, zinc, and iron. The experimental results were obtained with 5%-10% accuracy and corresponded well with the reference values. The present paper also demonstrates the limit of application of this method for plate with thickness r0/100 ≤ L ≤ r0/2. The technique is deemed interesting for the characterization of barely accessible components that require a contactless measurement.