Applying infrared measurements in a measuring system for determining thermal parameters of thermal insulation materials

The paper presents results of research on an innovative method for determining thermal parameters of thermal insulating materials. The method is based on harmonic thermal excitations. Temperature measurements at selected points of a specimen under test are performed by means of semiconductor infrared sensors. The study also employs a 3D model of thermal diffusion. To obtain a solution of the coefficient inverse problem a method based on an artificial neural network is presented. The heat transfer coefficient on the specimen surface is estimated on the basis of a reference specimen. The validity of the adopted model of heat diffusion and the usefulness of the method proposed are verified experimentally.