A Hybrid Method for Measuring Heat Flux

This paper reports on the development and evaluation of a novel hybrid method for obtaining heat flux measurements. By combining spatial and temporal temperature measurements, it is shown that both the time response and accuracy of a heat flux sensor can be improved. This hybrid method was shown to increase the time response of a heat flux sensor mounted on a high conductivity material by a factor of 28 compared to a standard spatial sensor. Furthermore, this analysis allows the heat flux sensor to be much less sensitive to the material to which it is mounted. It was shown that changing the thermal conductivity of the backing material four orders of magnitude caused only an 11% change in sensor error. This method is validated both numerically and experimentally and demonstrates significant improvement compared to operating the sensor as a spatial or temporal sensor alone.