Application of the flash method for the thermal characterisation of woven carbon fibre laminates

An application of a reliable method to measure the thermal diffusivity of woven carbon fibre laminates is presented in this paper. The thickness of the specimens does not exceed 2 mm and the rise in temperature is kept below 2°C. The flash method proposed by Parker has been used, considering that the determination of the thermal diffusivity of materials by means of pulse methods is strongly dependent upon the specimen thickness and energy pulse. Due to the physical and geometrical characteristics of the samples employed, corrections for the effects of thermal losses caused by finite pulse time, radiant energy penetration, flash lamp efficiency, etc., do not need to be considered. The results obtained show very good agreement with those reported by Lurikis et al. [Lurikis W, Desmet C, Glorieux C, Thoen J. J Mater Res 1993; 8(12): 3106] using the Mirage method and those of Navarrete (Navarrete M. Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Sciences, National University of México, DF México, 1998) for a classical non-steady state method.