Instrumentation complex for measuring the thermophysical properties of rocks in natural occurrence temperature conditions

A schematic diagram and an operation algorithm of an instrumentation complex for measuring the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity of rocks by the non-stationary method of a linear source under natural occurrence temperature conditions up to 200 °C are proposed. Thermocouples are used to measure the temperature of the probes. The complex contains two linear (needle) probes, which are placed in a rock sample at a certain distance r from each other. One probe, containing a linear heater and a thermocouple, radiates heat, the other one, containing a thermocouple, is a measuring probe. The cold junction temperature of thermocouples is measured by a semiconductor sensor. To calculate the voltage of the cold junction from the value of its temperature, a direct conversion of thermoEMF by a power polynomial is used. To calculate the temperature of the hot junction of the probe, an inverse transformation by a power polynomial of the voltage values of the hot junction of thermocouples into temperature was applied. In direct and inverse transformations, the degree of polynomials is 10. To reduce the temperature measurement error, digital filtering of signals from thermocouples was used. A digital-to-analogue converter is included in the heater circuit of the radiating probe for flexible heating control. The results of measuring the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity of dry and wet sand samples are consistent with the literature data on the temperature dependence.