The Review of Some Commonly Used Methods and Techniques to Measure the Thermal Conductivity of Insulation Materials

The use of insulation materials is considered as one of the most effective means of conserving energy in various fields. Thermal insulation materials enable systems to achieve energy efficiency. Many different thermal insulation materials have been developed to reduce heat flow by limiting conduction, convection, and/or radiation while performing one or more functions. These functions may vary in the context of thermal design, numerical simulations, and a wide range of engineering problems, such as determining the heat loss, temperature field, isolation, and cooling conservation, and in a variety of other technologies. One of the most effective ways to identify and determine performance is effective thermal conductivity. The thermal measurement performance is usually evaluated in a temperature and signal gradient for single or combined homogeneous/heterogenous materials. The two main categories of thermal conductivity measurement techniques are steady‐state methods and transient methods. The aim of this chapter is to present various measurement methods and to investigate their suitability for method purposes. This chapter presents new and accurate experimental techniques and methods for measuring the thermal conductivity of several most commonly used insulation materials. Some of these methods are commonly used in the field for measuring the thermal property of insulation materials. On the other hand, different insulation measurement practices are presented depending upon the overall structures. The analysis predicting the thermal conductivities of insulation materials is also discussed.