Novel front surface thermal diffusivity measurement method based on phase analysis

The technique described in this paper is for one-side thermal diffusivity measurement. A single stripe-shaped pulse provided by a flash lamp is used to heat the front surface of a specimen slab. Classical methods for estimating a parameter out of a distribution involve fitting the temperature distribution with its theoretical model [1][2]. With the technique described in this paper the evolution of the temperature distribution along a line perpendicular to the heated stripe is analyzed in the frequency domain. An estimate of the thermal diffusivity is then obtained from comparison of the phase component behavior with an abacus similarly built from the theoretical model.