On the optimum experiment and heating times when estimating thermal properties through the plane source method

The objective of the current research work is to provide the optimum experiment and heating times in dimensionless form to be used for the simultaneous estimation of thermal properties when running a plane source-based experiment. In detail, thermal conductivity, volumetric heat capacity and contact resistance. These optimum times are limited to highconductivity materials and are obtained by using a Doptimum criterion for different values of the heater heat capacity and contact resistance. These two parameters (that actually are not of interest) come from the use of a novel mathematical modelling of the the plane sourse apparatus. It is based on a boundary condition of the sixth kind applied to the sample to adequately describe the heat diffusion between the heater and the same specimen. Then, for an experimentalist ease-of-use, the optimum experiment and heating times are given in a graphical form as a function of the heater heat capacity with the contact resistance as a parameter.