Tentative Design for Measurements of Absolute Value of Thermal Conductivity of Semi-Conducting Thermoelectric Elements

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/msri/050106

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Thermal conductivity is an important characteristic of materials in particular semi-conductors and ceramics. Since it varies within a wide range and is measured in a variety of methods, no commercial device has, so far, been established to measure thermal conductivity. Hence, it sounds necessary to develop a device to meet all needs of scholars in laboratory with a general application. Development of such a device, beside relevant calculations, is evaluated in this paper where thermal conductivity of a thermoelectric semi-conductor ingot (approximately 8 mm in diameter and 24 mm in length) at the range of room temperature is considered. At lower temperatures, thermal conductivity is almost invariant and measured in both comparative and absolute methods. Absolute value method is still widely used at temperatures below room temperature. A great deal of practical error is due to heat leakage via radiation, convection and heat transfer. Within the range of room temperature, heat leakage shares a smaller contribution in error, but not an ignorable one. At higher temperatures heat leakage plays more important role and increasing temperature makes it more and more difficult parameter to define. Hence, for fabricating a device for thermal conductivity measurement taking into the account the errors and the involved parameters it is necessary to review the scientist comments in this subject which. we have a coverage of their idea.

Thermal conductivity; Thermal diffusivity; Thermocouples; Heat flow; Heat rate