Trident™ Thermal Conductivity Application Highlight: Testing Concrete with FLEX TPS
The following Application Highlight addresses testing of concrete using the C-Therm Trident™. The document highlights the use of bulk thermal conductivity testing on porous samples with the TPS method.
Researchers, engineers, and students in the field of concretes, cements, geopolymers and similar materials need to tune their products’ thermal properties to the application in question, to optimize energy efficiency and control thermal strain. Too low thermal conductivity can result in a large temperature gradient between opposite ends of the material in application, resulting in thermal strain and cracking. On the other hand, a very high thermal conductivity can make it difficult to control the internal temperature.
To maximize efficiency in construction, a variety of lightweight concretes have been developed to decrease weight of walls and foundations without losing much strength. However, these lightweight concretes often are more porous than their standard analogs, resulting in changes to the effective thermal conductivity. To counteract these changes and ensure the new lightweight formulations will still pass heat-transfer requirements, additives are often added to tune the thermal properties.
The following highlights basic setup instructions and example data for testing concrete samples.
Figure 1. Concrete sample setup for testing with Trident FLEX TPS
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