A Hybrid Method for Measuring Heat Flux

The development and evaluation of a novel hybrid method for obtaining heat flux measurements is presented. By combining the spatial and temporal temperature measurements of a heat flux sensor, the time response, accuracy, and versatility of the sensor is improved. Sensors utilizing the hybrid method are able to make heat flux measurements on both high and low conductivity materials. It is shown that changing the thermal conductivity of the backing material four orders of magnitude causes only an 11% change in sensor response. The hybrid method also increases the time response of heat flux sensors. The temporal response is shown to increase by up to a factor of 28 compared with a standard spatial sensor. The hybrid method is tested both numerically and experimentally on both high and low conductivity materials and demonstrates significant improvement compared with operating the sensor as a spatial or temporal sensor alone.