Daniel Worley

@01198621

Finding Thermal Diffusivity

In order to calculate the thermal diffusivity of some unknown element I have made two assumptions;
1. The material is metal like in properties (can be shaped)
2. The testing piece of the material is large enough that under the given tests, it can be
assumed as a semi-infinite solid

Process:
To begin, a large rectangular piece of material is collected and a hole is drilled to the center of
the material from the side at x = L/10 in order to insert a temperature probe or thermocouple.

Next, the material will be placed in an oven where it can be heated to a temperature of 150 C. Once the
material is at uniform temperature, it will be moved into an insulated sleeve, insulating all sides but one
(This is to help imitate the semi-infinite solid). Now, place the open end of the material to an ice block
maintained at 0 C. This will simulate one end of the material suddenly being lowered to a temperature
of 0 C. At 5 seconds, take the Temperature measurement from the probe.

Daniel Worley
@01198621

Finding Thermal Diffusivity

Discussion:
With this temperature, you can now find the dimensionless temperature given the equation,

Plugging in values will yield a constant, this constant can be compared to the Error function table
(erf()) and the corresponding value can be found by method of integration.

Finally, can be plugged into the equation below, and the thermal diffusivity constant can be
found