Electrical-optical hybrid pulse-heating method for rapid measurement of high-temperature thermal diffusivity

An electrical-optical hybrid pulse-heating method has been developed for measuring the thermal diffusivity of conductive materials up to very high temperatures. This method is an integration of the laser flash method and the feedback-controlled current-pulse heating technique. This method can measure the thermal diffusivity even at temperatures above 2500K in less than 1s for a sample initially held at room temperature. The resulting short exposure to high temperature can minimize the contamination of the sample and apparatus. To demonstrate the performance of this method, the thermal diffusivities of molybdenum from 2000to2600K have been determined.