Metallic powder thermal diffusivity and conductivity estimation

Throughout this project, the design of an experimental setup for calculating the thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of metallic powder is treated. Additionaly, a theoretical model is developed comparing the existing models in literature for understanding the particles interaction and estimating our powder effective thermal conductivity. A transient thermal simulation using the Finite Element Mehtod is performed to validate the designed prototype. The obtained values for the powder thermal diffusivity converge along time, although there is a stationary error that could be calibrated testing powders with known thermal diffusivity. For the studied case, a relative error of 11,3% is shown, which is considerably less than the ±30% relative error obtained by the literature reviewed. Powder effective thermal conductivity was estimated with an average relative error of 14,6% when lateral heat loss is considered, while a disproportionately high value was obtained when lateral heat loss was not computed. This project has been carried out in the Hewlett-Packard Company, at the 3D Printing Laboratory, and consequently, some data will not be available in this document due to confidential reasons.