ABSTRACT

The work is centered on the rehabilitation and performance analysis of equipment that tests the thermal conductivity of solids i.e. metals, alloy, insulations etc. A feasibility study was carried out on earlier research done on thermal conductivity measurement and also on a wide range of locally available engineering materials that could be employed in the design of this equipment. This equipment has only a linear testing modules for carrying out thermal conductivity measurement. The testing module and all other equipment are housed by the equipment casting made from aluminum square pipes. The frame work of this casting was made with aluminum which provides equipment with much rigidity and impact resistance. Thermal conductivity testing of materials was carried out on this machine to validate the performance of the test equipment. The heat capacity was recorded to be 300watt and temperature of about 280°C was generated from the heater. The cooling system involve a pipe which takes about 0.3cm3of water ever 45minutes to cool the system. Design calculation were made and thermal conductivity ranges from 0.09 to 90W/MK was obtained, showing thermal conductivity of various materials of this range can be measure using this equipment.