Thermophysical Properties of Monoporous Sintered Copper

Thermophysical properties of monodispersed-sintered copper are measured. An apparatus to measure effective thermal conductivity of dry and wet samples is built. It is calibrated using bulk samples with known thermal conductivity. Permeability is measured based on flow resistance though the porous samples. Velocity at different pressure drops is measured and the permeability calculated using Darcy’s law. The experiment is performed using water and silicone oil as working liquids. The error of the measurement is less then five percent. Capillary pressure for all samples is measured based on amount of liquid that is held by the porous sample. The Young-Laplace relationship is used to relate capillary pressure to effective pore radius. Porosity of the samples is calculated by measuring the dimension of samples and weighing the amount of liquid in fully saturated samples. Thermal conductivity and capillary pressure are found to decrease as powder diameter increases; permeability and porosity increases with powder diameter.