Finite Element Modeling and Validation of the Behaviour and Performance of a Novel Thermal Measuring Sensor

Thermal properties of materials, thermal conductivity chief among them, are essential values needed byengineers and scientists when designing thermal systems, understanding thermal behaviour and developingnovel thermal technologies. C-Therm, a Canadian company, is a world-leader in the design of thermal propertycharacterization systems, i.e., systems that measure thermal conductivities and other thermal properties ofmaterials. Such a measurement is far from trivial since a thermal experiment needs to be performed every timea measurement is made and analysed after the fact using advanced heat conduction science to extract theproperty values. In other word, those properties are not measured directly, they are inferred from the results ofa very accurate test, accurate data and complex mathematical understanding of what heat transfer is.C-Them is working to improve their technology in order to remain at the forefront of their industry by movingtowards a methodology that will greatly reduce the amount of calibration require and will provide results basedstrictly on first principles. The challenge being to still offer results fast out of their systems (completesimulation of the thermal process could take minutes to hours to obtain, while their client expect results inseconds). The goal of this research project is to assist C-Therm in the development of this novel methodologyby numerically studying the behaviour of their sensor and the various samples C-Therm is intended to apply itto (thin films, vacuum insulation panels, etc). Using advanced numerical simulations, the complete heattransfer rates and temperature fields in the overall system can be obtained and studied to extract the mostimportant feature of the heat transfer process and gain a greater understanding of the impact of the variousparameters that can be varied in the experiment (related to physical dimensions and layout of the sensor and theoverall operation of it: heat flow, temperature). Those results are also of prime importance to C-Therm as itwill serve to validate the analytical methodology they are developing in house.