Thermal Diffusion Imaging and Modeling of Heat Flow
Alek Nelson and Jackson Piechowski
The goal of our experiment this semester was basically to test a process for modelling the flow of heat through thin sheets of various materials and then to apply the process to measure the thermal diffusivity of carbon fiber. This process consists of applying a heat source to one side of a sheet of the material and viewing the flow of this heat using a thermal imaging camera. Once a video of the heat flow was taken, we could take still frames from it at different times and fit to a Gaussian to quantify the distance the thermal energy had spread. This distance was then plotted against time to find the thermal diffusivity. To see the math behind this process, go to the Theory section. Or perhaps you want to know more about how the data was taken - if so, the Experimental Setup page is right for you.
To test the process, we measured the thermal diffusivity of copper, aluminum, and brass, with mixed results. There were multiple issues with both the samples and our process which affected our results, as explored in the Analysis and Future Improvements sections. Regardless, we decided to measure the thermal diffusivity of Carbon Fiber anyways and, while we have no guarantee that out values are accurate, they do fall withing the factor of 10 range we expected. For more on that, head to the Analysis or Results and Conclusion.