Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s

Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune

(1)
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF
INSULATING POWDER

Department of Mechanical Engineering Heat Transfer Lab

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune

Name: Roll No: Div: Batch:

Sem: AY: 2023-24
Date of conduction: Date of submission:

EXPERIMENT NO. 1

TITLE: THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF INSULATING POWDER

AIM: To determine experimentally thermal conductivity of insulating powder

Apparatus/Instrumentation: Ammeter, Voltmeter, Dimmer stat, Thermocouples, Digital

Temperature Indicator etc.

INTRODUCTION:

In almost all industries heat transfer equipments play an important role, where from economy point
of view it is very essential to minimize heat losses to the surrounding. This leads to increase an
overall efficiency of thermal system. In such cases, the surface of equipment prone to heat loss is
covered by a material of lower thermal conductivity called as insulator. There is an ample demand
for such materials in engineering industry due to which many industries have come up to produce
such materials in different categories, shapes, and sizes. It is utmost important to select proper
category of insulating material for the case in hand. Selection of insulating material is always
dependent on working temperature range, shape and size of the systems to be insulated. One
important category of insulating material is in powder form. The obvious reason is the powder can
take any complicated shape between any two containing surfaces. Also, its thermal conductivity
is much lower than that of its basic solid form. This is because of the larger number of air gaps
present within powder. This experiment therefore aims to determine thermal conductivity of an
insulating material in powder form.

EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS:

A. Experimental set-up:

Experimental facility consists of two thin-walled concentric copper spheres. The inner sphere
houses heating element. The insulating powder filled in the annular gap between the two copper
spheres, takes the form of a hollow sphere. The power supply to heater coil is controlled by a
dimmerstat and is measured by voltmeter and ammeter. Four chromel-alumel thermocouples are
used to measure the temperatures at inner and outer surface of insulating powder sphere.
Thermocouples T1 and T2 are embedded closure to the outer surface of inner sphere and
thermocouples T3 and T4 are embedded closure to the inner surface of outer sphere.

Department of Mechanical Engineering Heat Transfer Lab

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune

B. Theory:

Experimental analysis is based on the following assumptions, Assumptions:

• Insulating powder is isotropic.
• Thermal conductivity is constant in space.
• One dimensional radial heat conduction.
• Steady state conduction.
• No radiation and convection effects.
Now consider the transfer of heat by conduction through hollow sphere formed by
insulating powder layer packed between two copper spheres.
Let,
Ri = Inner radius of insulating powder hollow sphere (m) 37.5 mm
Ro = Outer radius of insulating powder hollow sphere (m) 75 mm
Ti = Average temperature of inner surface of insulating powder hollow sphere (oC)
To = Average temperature of outer surface of insulating powder hollow sphere (oC)
where,
Ti = (T1+T2)/2, and To = (T3+T4)/2
According to Fourier law of heat conduction, the unknown thermal conductivity can be
determined as:
𝑞(𝑅𝑜 −𝑅𝑖 )
k=
4𝜋𝑅𝑜 𝑅𝑖 (𝑇𝑜 −𝑇𝑖 )
where,
q = V.I (W)

C. Procedure:

1. Start main switch of panel.

2. Put on the heater switch and adjust the heater input through dimmerstat.
3. Wait until steady state condition is reached.
4. Note down the readings of all thermocouples through selector switch, voltmeter and
ammeter.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

1. Inner Radius (Ri = 37.5 mm)

2. Outer Radius (Ro = 75 mm)
3. Insulating Powder = Asbestos

Department of Mechanical Engineering Heat Transfer Lab

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune

OBSERVATION TABLE:

Sr. No Heater Input Thermocouple readings, 0C

V (Volt) I (amp) T1 T2 T3 T4
1
2
3

CALCULATIONS:
Use equations explained above in experiment theory to calculate thermal conductivity of given
insulating powder,

a) Ti =
b) To =
c) q =
d) k =

RESULT TABLE:

Sr. No. Ti (℃) To (℃) q (watt) Thermal Conductivity [k] (W/m℃)

1
2
3

Department of Mechanical Engineering Heat Transfer Lab

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune

Experimental set-up:

Figure (a), Schematic of Experimental Set-Up.

Department of Mechanical Engineering Heat Transfer Lab