A dilatometric method to measure the thermal diffusivity of nonmetallic liquids

Abstract

A new method to measure the thermal diffusivity of liquids is presented. It requires determination of the time dependence of the thermal expansion of the liquid when it is subjected to a heat source at the top of the cell containing the liquid. The high accuracy of the method (about 3%) is due to an essential reduction of convective currents and also to the absence of temperature detectors, which generally introduce unwanted perturbations on the thermal field.

Optical interference dilatometer

“…By comparing the variation of images before and after heating, the expansion of the material was calculated. In 1994, Omini et al [3] used the dilatometric method to measure the thermal diffusivity of nonmetallic liquids. From 2001 to 2004, Watanabe et al [4][5][6] proposed a series of laser interferometric dilatometers to measure the thermal expansion coefficients of solids.…”