A conceptual approach for noncontact calorimetry in space

A concept is developed and described which allows to measure the heat capacity and the effective thermal conductivity of stable and undercooled liquid metals and alloys in an electromagnetic levitation apparatus. A proposal is made to use an ac pulse heating method which is used nowadays as a standard technique for precision measurement of low-temperature heat capacities. The ideal process parameters, including the drop diameter D, temperature T, and frequency of measurement omega, can be optimized when the following relations hold for the external and internal relaxation time constants tau-1 and tau-2, respectively: omega(tau-1) greater than 10 and omega(tau-2) less than 0.1. Then, heat capacity data can be obtained with an accuracy of better than 1 percent with D about 5 to 10 mm, T between 1200 and 1800 K, and omega between 0.1 and 1 Hz for typical metals and alloys.