Measurement 46 (2013) 27462752

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Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

Measurement of thermal conductivity of uid using single and

dual wire transient techniques
Siddharth Komini Babu 1, K.S. Praveen 1, B. Raja , P. Damodharan 1
Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing (IIITD&M) Kancheepuram, Chennai 600 127, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 20 August 2012
Received in revised form 7 February 2013
Accepted 13 May 2013
Available online 25 May 2013
Keywords:
Transient hot wire
Platinum
Thermal conductivity
Dual wire method

a b s t r a c t
A modied measurement device to measure thermal conductivity of uids using transient
hot-wire technique has been designed, developed, tested and presented in this paper. The
equipment is designed such that the thermal conductivity could be measured using both
single wire sensor of different length and dual wire sensor. The sensor, which is also a heater, is a platinum micro-wire of 50 lm diameter. The inuence of wire length on the measurement of thermal conductivity of uids is tested using two single wires of length 50 mm
and 100 mm. The thermal conductivity is also measured using a dual hot wire arrangement; which is achieved by placing the 100 mm and 50 mm wires in a Wheatstone bridge
with the 100 mm wire as the sensor and 50 mm wire as a compensation wire. The apparatus requires a 100 ml of test uid to perform the experiment. The testing temperature of
the test uid during the experimentation can be suitably varied by the choice of heat
exchange uid used in the apparatus. Water is chosen as testing uids for primary standards. When compared to single wires, the thermal conductivity of the uids measured
is consistent with dual-wire method with an uncertainty of 0.25%.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The thermal conductivity of uids is the most essential
parameter required for thermal design and its consideration. Laser ash method [1], thermo reectance techniques [2], 3-omega technique [35] etc. techniques are
gaining importance since it measures properties based on
either steady state or pseudo steady state solutions.
Traditionally, transient hot wire techniques; which uses
Fouriers transient heat conduction model, is a well-established method for accurate measurement of thermal conductivity over a wide variety of substances such as solids

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 044 27476355; fax: +91 044

27476301.
E-mail addresses: siddhukb@gmail.com (S. Komini Babu), nanopraveeniiitdm@gmail.com (K.S. Praveen), rajab@iiitdm.ac.in (B. Raja), damodharan@iiitdm.ac.in (P. Damodharan).
1
Tel.: +91 044 27476355; fax: +91 044 27476301.
0263-2241/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2013.05.017

[6], polymers [7,8], and molten substances [9]. Among

these samples, determining the thermal conductivity of
uid and gas samples is very complicated and delicate.
Even though uids and gases can transfer through conduction, tend to invoke natural convection current which
eventually superimposes the desired thermal conductivity
value achieved using Fourier heat conduction. A variety of
instruments have been modied and improvised in the
past for better accuracy of thermal conductivity of uids
using hot wire technique [1016]. In principle the method
can be used to obtain both the thermal conductivity and
the thermal diffusivity using the same experiment. It is
seen that the wire diameter, length and material, nature
of the uid, material of construction, modes of heat transfer, electrical conductivity of the uid etc. plays a vital role
in measuring the thermal conductivity of the uid accurately. In this paper a redesign of the hot wire apparatus
that could used to measure the thermal conductivity of liquids is presented.

S. Komini Babu et al. / Measurement 46 (2013) 27462752

2747

Nomenclature
T
r
t
q
k
R

nal temperature (K)

radial distance (m)
time (s)
heat ux (W m2)
thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
resistance (X)

Greek letters
a
thermal diffusivity (m2 s1)
D
change
c
Eulers constant
e
emissivity

2. Mathematical model

Stephan Boltzmann constant

Subscript
f
0
LONG
SHORT
g
ID
PT

uid
initial
long wire
short wire
bridge
ideal
platinum

DT 2  DT 1

The platinum wire, which serves as both sensor and

heater, is modeled as an innitely long and thin, ideal continuous line source dissipating heat into an innite medium, with constant heat generation [17]. Since the wire is
very thin, line source is assumed to have an innite thermal conductivity and zero heat capacity. Thus, the heat
conduction process could be represented as the Fourier
one dimensional transient heat conduction (Eq. (1))



1 @
@T
1 @T

r
r @r
@r
af @t

The boundary condition for the above equations is

  
@T
q

t 0 and r 0lim r
r!0
@r
2pkf

t P 0 and r 1limfDTr; tg 0
r!1

where DT T  T 0
Using the above, the temperature change at a radial distance r, from the heat source is conforms to a Eq. (3) by
applying boundary conditions (2). Upon exponential integration the solution is given in Eq. (4).

DTr; t Tr; t  T 0

q
r2
Ei
4pkf
4af t


3

DT Tr;t  T 0
8
2   2
39
>
>


r2
r2
<
=
4af t
4af t
q
6 4af t
7

c ln


::

:::::::
4
5
2
>
1  1!
4pkf >
2  2!
r
:
;
4



4af t
q
DT Tr; t  T 0
c ln
4pkf
r2

where c 0:5772 is the Euler constant

At any xed radial distance, in two instances in time the
equation, the temperature change can be represented as
the following equation:

 
q
t2
ln
4pkf
t1

A plot of temperature against the natural logarithm of

time results in a straight line, the slope being propositional
to kf

kf

q d lnt
4p dDT

Eq. (3) can also be re-written as Eq. (8) such that both
thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity could be
achieved from the same equation




4af t
q
DT Tr; t  T 0
c ln
4pkf
r2
 

4af t k
q

ln
e
4pkf
r2
4af
q
q
ln 2 ek
lnt

4pkf
4pkf
r

The slope of the equation can give the thermal conductivity and the intercept will give the thermal diffusivity. In
this paper thermal conductivity is the matter of interest.
3. Apparatus design and circuitry
The schematic layout of the apparatus along with the
instrumentation circuitry is shown in Fig. 1a, b and c and
the essential apparatus dimensions are shown in Table 1.
The apparatus consist of three chambers respectively vacuum chamber (1), coolant chamber (2) and the platinum
micro-wire assembly chamber (3). The entire apparatus
is constructed using SS 316. The vacuum chamber, which
is the exterior compartment, ensures heat inltration to
and from the ambient. It is ensured that the chamber is
vacuumed using a vacuum pump (4), prior conducting
the experimentation. The next inner concentric chamber
is the coolant chamber. Based on the temperature requirement, the coolant can be appropriately chosen to maintain
the temperature in the micro-wire chamber which is lled
with the test uid.
The coolant is pumped from a temperature controlled
bath into the coolant chamber through 5 and leaves the
chamber through exit pipe 6. The temperature of the

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S. Komini Babu et al. / Measurement 46 (2013) 27462752

Fig. 1. Schematic layout of the apparatus.

Table 1
Essential parameters.
S. No.

Description

Dimension

1
2
3
4
5
6

Diameter of the micro wire

Length of the long wire
Length of the short wire
Diameter of the bore that holds micro wire
Outer diameter of the coolant chamber
Outer diameter of the vacuum chamber

50 lm
100 mm
50 mm
8 mm
100 mm
150 mm

coolant in its chamber is measured using PT100 sensors

TS1 and TS2. The inner most chamber is the micro-wire
chamber in which the platinum micro-wires are xed.
There are three tubes respectively 7, 8 and 9 for short wire,
long wire and common connecting wires. The upper end of
three tubes is welded to manifold to which entry (8) and
exit (9) valve for test uid are connected. The PT100 Temperature sensors TS3 and TS4 are used to measure the temperature at the inlet and drain manifolds. The platinum
micro-wires are held inside the tube 7 and 9 by using the
Teon holder (10) and soft silicone rubber as shown in
Fig. 1b. The platinum wire is exposed to uid only for
100 mm in the long wire and 50 mm in the short wire.
The remaining wire connections are soldered using silver
wire, which are Teon sleeved. The electrical connectivity
is carefully brought outside the vessel using a feed through
connectors. The most critical operation is the silver soldering of the micro-wires with the connecting wires and

bringing out the apparatus using the feed through connectors. The entire assembly is perfectly insulated with thermo-foam insulation (11). The vacuum system provided is
connected to a single stage vacuum pump, which gets its
automatic feedback from an absolute pressure gauge. Since
the uid used in the present study is non-volatile, the liquid is manually fed by volume measurement. The data
from the circuitry is taken to a computational device using
Agilent data acquisition system.
In a transient hot wire method, the thermal conductivity of a uid is measured using the rate of increase of temperature of micro-wire with time for an applied step
change of voltage. The overall apparatus is completely isolated from all sources of vibration, such that the test uid
in which the micro-wires are suspended is in absolute static condition. This condition is synonymous to Eq. (1),
which mandates that the heat transfer process in the uid
is only through conduction. The supply voltage generates a
constant heat ux per unit length throughout the microwire which is transferred to the static uid medium. The
change in resistance of the sensing wire is related to the
rate at which the heat is removed from the wire and thus
the thermal properties of the uid. The resistance of the
micro-wire during heating could also be measured by placing a resistor in series with a power supply, nding the potential difference across the resistor and dividing by the
current through the micro-wire. This would only end in
practical difculties and inaccuracies. For instance, in order
to measure resistance, consider that the voltmeter is

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S. Komini Babu et al. / Measurement 46 (2013) 27462752

connected across an unknown resistance. A small current

is essential to deect the moving coil in case of an analog
voltmeter. This current will then ow through the ammeter in addition to the main current through the resistance.
The ammeter reading will be too high and quotient of the
two meters readings will be too low. Now consider a technique in which a voltmeter connected across both the
resistor and the ammeter. The voltmeter reading will be
too large since it measures the potential difference across
the ammeter as well, which would result in large resistance. Difculties in the method attributed to uncertainties
to the construction of the meter, which further depend
upon such factors as smallest division and the perfectness
in the calibration. The uncertainties are compounded when
the two meter readings are divided to calculate resistance.
For the most accurate measurement of resistance, the
Wheatstone bridge circuit is used. This circuit avoids most
of the difculties in the aforementioned methods. This
method demands high precision measurement of resistance change making the Wheatstone circuit as the ultimate choice.
To construct the Wheatstone bridge, the long wire (L) is
placed in one working arm of the bridge and the short wire
(S) in the other. An accurate power supply of 5 V DC is applied to the bridge and voltage across the bridge is read as
a function of time. Channels are provided in the circuit
shown in Fig. 1c is to measure the current and voltages
in the circuit. The measurement of thermal conductivity
is accomplished in two steps. In the rst step the bridge
is balanced to null. The switch 1 is turned from the dummy
side to the bridge keeping the switch 2 closed. With a very
small applied voltage 0.1 V and keeping the cell at constant
temperature the leads, hot wires and ballast resistances are
measured. The ballast resistance is adjusted until each leg
is approximately 100 X. The bridge null is then checked
across the channel 6 to ensure the balanced condition.
The second step involves the conductivity measurement.
Before switching on the power supply, the switch 1 is
turned to the dummy side as a precaution to avoid the
pre heating of platinum wires keeping the switch 2 closed.
The power supply is then set to 5 V and the switch1 is
turned to the bridge. Voltages are read on channel 6 using
the data logger for 5 s and the values are stored. The power
is then switched back to the dummy side to prevent the
wires from getting over heated.
The circuitry shown in Fig. 1c is capable of accomplishing conductivity measurements using long, short and dual
wires arrangement individually. The switches 3 and 4 are
provided in the circuit to necessitate the desired measurement by absenting the unwanted wire from the circuit. For
instance, if dual wire measurement is to be taken both
switches 3 and 4 are closed. For long wire reading an external 100 X is connected to the short wire terminal to switch
4 and similarly for short wire the resistance is externally
connected to the long wire terminal and the switch 3.
The power supply used provides a constant voltage at the
circuit terminals. The instantaneous value of heat ux applied to the circuit is calculated from the Eq. (11). The ideal
analysis states that the heat ux q, applied to the wire remains constant during a given run. Under experimental
conditions q is assumed to be nearly ideal. However at very

low temperature the q will vary from the beginning to end

of a run by values up to several percentages. V (t) is assumed to vary one part in 1000 over a run, and some assume it to vary linearly with ln (t).
The voltages measured across the bridge measure the
unbalance of the bridge. A typical set of over 1000 readings
per sec is used to get the plot. The voltage plot is observed
to be logarithmic with time. A certain amount of judgement is required in choosing the required part of the data
for calculating the thermal conductivity. The bridge voltage is measured for more than 1 s to enunciate the logarithmic curve but for calculating the thermal conductivity
of the uid, the conduction part is considered. A typical
set of reading is used to get the plot between DT and
ln (t). The standard for a valid result is that DT values plotted, forms a straight line with ln (t). The range of time over
which this linear plot exists is considered for evaluating
the thermal conductivity. For most of the experiments
the range is between 100 ms and 950 ms. It is also important in identifying the improper results to be scorned. If the
value of DT is constant in the run then the uid sample is
interpreted to be in steady state or as the onset of convective currents. A non-uniform temperature eld in the wires
signals the measurement to be rejected, for this indicates
that the segment is subjected to convective cooling. It
was observed that measurements on water between 100
and 950 ms were found to be appropriate.

DV g

R1 R3 DR3  R2 R4 DR4
V IN
R1 R2 R3 DR3 R4 DR4

R1 R2 R3 R4 100 X
where
R3 = Rbalast1 + Rlong
Simplifying

DV g

and

V IN  Rt
8  R3

R4 = Rbalast2 + Rshort

10

qt I2 R
Vt=R3 t R4 t2 RLong RShort =lLong lShort
11

DR3 DRLONG D RLeads

DR4 DRSHORT D RLeads
Initial Conditions  bridgebalanced
R1 =R2 R4 =R3 1

DRSHORT DRLONG =2
Rt Ro 1 a DT

12

Equating (9), (10) yields DR and further substituting in

Eq. (12) yields DT seen in Eq. (8). The relation given in the
equation implies a straight line for a plot of DT versus ln (t).
The slope of the T versus ln (t) relation is obtained over a
valid range using the applied power. The numerical slope
value is equal to slope part of the Eq. (8), which yields thermal conductivity.

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S. Komini Babu et al. / Measurement 46 (2013) 27462752

4. Temperature corrections
It is essential to mention about the inherent deviation
present in approach. As per the mathematical model, the
wire is assumed have a zero radius and innite length immersed in an innite medium. But in reality both the diameter and length of the wire have denite values. Also, the
sensor, the platinum wire, mathematically has innite
thermal conductivity and zero heat capacity, which is
approximate. Due to the heating of the micro-wire, the
temperature difference in the test uid could activate natural convection. Even though Eq. (8) mandates only conduction heat transfer, presence of convection would
reduce the temperature and enhance the mathematical value of the thermal conductivity. Still, the presence of such a
convective current could be identied by departure from
the non-linear trend. The convection current are dominant
in gases, and in the presence study the test uids are liquids and thus effect of convective current is assumed negligible. Most of the uids are not transparent to infrared
and radiation component in those uids follows the same
radiation principle. Considering the radiation between
the platinum wire and the cell wall as between diffusive
grey surfaces, the radiation is correction is taken as Eq.
(13) [1315].

dT R

8pr ePT rT 3O DT 2ID

q

Fig. 2. Transient variation of bridge voltage.

and direct proportionality of resistance with the length, the

resistance is less, when compared to other two arrangements. Further, the dual wire arrangement has resulted
in less electrical noise when compared to the other two
arrangements. Measurements of this type indicate that
end correction would be required for single wires whereas
in dual wire the compensation is provided by the bridge
circuit arrangement.
5.2. Thermal conductivity of water

13

5. Results and discussion

The test facility to measure thermal conductivity was
constructed and the experiments were conducted with
water at 1 atm for temperature between 15 and 50 C. Both
the test uids are infrared absorbing substances and therefore, suitable correction factors are taken into account. Free
convection is predominant only in gases and the factors are
not considered in the present study. The thermal conductivity for the test condition is measured using the long
wire, short wire and the dual wire and compared.

The variation of the temperature rise of the platinum

wire with the logarithmic time is studied for all the three
congurations are shown in Fig. 3. It is clearly seen from
the gure that the long wire holds a plot very close to
the dual wire conguration while the short wire being well
below the other two congurations. It is observed that the

5.1. Bridge voltage

The transient variation of short wire, long wire and dual
wire arrangement is shown in Fig. 2. The transient measurements were of close to 5 s and performed for four
scans. In all the methods, the logarithmic variation shows
two regions of the voltage rises for all the three combination in the Wheat stone bridge, which is demarcated by
transient and steady variation of bridge voltage. It is evident that from the gure that as the length of the wire decreases both transient and steady state variation merges,
which enhances the error in the value of thermal conductivity. Eq. (8) requires the transient variation with sufcient slope to estimate the thermal conductivity. On the
other hand, the long wire yields a slope closer to that of
a dual wire. When compared with the dual wire, it could
be seen that the steady state region is delayed by 0.1 s in
the sample reading shown, which is advantageous to measure the thermal conductivity. Also, due to the short length

Fig. 3. Transient variation of temperature rise.

S. Komini Babu et al. / Measurement 46 (2013) 27462752

Fig. 4. Radiation correction on the dual wire.

2751

observed that both measurement using short and long

wire over predicted by +2% and 1.5%. The dual-wire technique very closely matches with an accuracy of 0.25%.
The major practical difculty in any hot wire apparatus
is xing the platinum micro-wire in the bore and providing
a uniform temperature to the test uids. Both these problems were easily tackled in the present design. Also in the
place of electrical heater to rise the temperature of the
uid, as seen in some designs, induction current place a
negative role because the entire apparatus is usually preferred to be constructed with stainless steel. The presence
of liquid heating and cooling in this present design has
completely eradicated the presence of induction.
6. Conclusion

Fig. 5. Comparison of thermal conductivity of water.

A transient hot-wire thermal conductivity instrument is

designed and constructed. The equipment is tested with
water for the measurement of the isobaric thermal conductivity. The measurement is taken using different length of
the wires and their combination in the form of dual wire
along with the necessary correction for radiation. It observed that as the length of the wire sensor is decreased,
the desired slope of the transient variation of bridge voltage against the time seems to vanish. Thus, the experiment
has to be conducted for very small interval of time, which
is not really practical in the presence of electrical noise.
The dual wire arrangement has delayed the steady state
variation when compared to long wire arrangement. The
thermal conductivity of the uids measured is consistent
with dual-wire method with an accuracy 0.25%.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by Department of Science and
Technology (DST-SERC), India (Grant No. SR/FTP/ETA0017/2010). We thank M/s Delvac Pumps, Chennai, India
for extending their facilities to fabricate the dual hotwire
device with precise accuracy.
References

Fig. 6. Deviation plot.

rise in temperature of the short wire is less than the dual

wire conguration by almost 0.25 C. The slope and the
constant of the linear t, both vary, thereby yielding a
small difference in the values of thermal conductivity
and diffusivity for different congurations.
The inuence of correction factors on thermal conductivity is shown in Fig. 4. It is seen that the radiation correction has increases a mean temperature rise of about 0.02 K.
However, its importance in the thermal conductivity value
is only marginal of around 2%.
The variation of measured thermal conductivity for all
the three arrangements along with the NIST [18] values
for water at different temperature and the deviation plot
for the same are shown in Figs. 5 and 6 respectively. It is

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