A homemade 2-dimensional thermal conduction apparatus designed as a student project

Abstract

It can be fairly expensive to equip a heat transfer lab with commercially available devices. It is always nice to be able to make a device that provides an effective lab experience for the students. It is an extra bonus if the device can be designed as a student project, giving the students working on the device both a real design experience and a better understanding of the principles involved with the device and the associated lab exercise. One example of such a device is a 2-dimensional heat conduction device which was designed and built as a student senior design project by mechanical engineering technology students at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. The device described in this paper allows the students to determine the thermal conductivity of several different materials, and to graphically see the effect of contact resistance in the heat conduction path. The students use the conductivity information to try to determine what material the test samples are made of. This paper describes the design of the device and the basic theory including a description of how it applies to this particular device. Finally, typical data and results are shown. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2008.