ASTM International's thermal measurements committee (E37) is developing a proposed standard that describes a reliable technique for investigating the thermal transport properties of materials. The proposed standard (WK49591) will help to provide information on thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and volumetric heat capacity.

According to ASTM International member Artem Trofimov, understanding thermal transport properties is essential in applications where heat plays a role, including determination of safe operating temperature, modeling/simulation, design applications, process control, and quality assurance.

"The proposed standard will be useful both in industrial production and in the research environment," said Trofimov, product specialist, Orton Ceramic Foundation. "Manufacturers and consumers can benefit from this technique because it allows a fairly quick check of the thermal properties."

Trofimov notes that the proposed standard is helpful for quality control because the deviation of thermal properties from the established ones can be correlated to the presence of defects, impurities, or differences in the material processing. The proposed standard could also be used to monitor the degradation of materials throughout their life cycles.

This effort relates to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 on affordable and clean energy.

ASTM welcomes participation in the development of its standards. Become a member at www.astm.org/JOIN.