Transient plane source (TPS) technique for measuring thermal transport properties of building materials

Abstract The electrical circuit for the recently developed transient plane source (TPS) technique for fast and precise measurements of thermal transport properties of solids has been modified for more convenient and more automated measurements. The technique has been tested for measurements of thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity for a series of building materials ranging from thermally insulating materials (extruded polystyrene and PMMA) to good thermal conductors (stainless steel and aluminium). The results obtained in this work agree well with other techniques and international standard materials. This agreement indicates that the TPS method is accurate to within ±5% over a thermal conductivity range of four orders of magnitude (0.02 W m −1 K −1 to 200 W m −1 k −1 ).