Modified split column technique for the experimental determination of thermal conductivity of polymers

The continuous increase in the utilization of polymeric materials in many specific applications has demanded detailed knowledge of their physical properties, both during their processing as raw material, as well as in the overall range of the working temperature of the final polymer product. Nowadays, mathematical modeling has become an established tool for improving process control and product quality in polymer processing. As models become more sophisticated, there is an increasing need for reliable thermo-physical properties data. In this work, a very simple and low cost arrangement, a variation of the well-known split column method, is employed in the experimental determination of the thermal conductivity of some selected polymers. Rectangular parallelepiped shaped samples, (200 × 100 × 20) mm were prepared by cutting such pieces from long commercial plates or through an extrusion process starting from the powder or pellets of the solid polymer. Experimental results show a solid consistence when they are checked against results obtained by other techniques.