Design and realization of an experimental apparatus based on hot plate concept for measure of thermal resistance of building insulating materials

The present work proposes a thermal resistance measurement system, derived from hot plate concept, which simplify some building features without compromising its reliability. The purpose is to provide an instrument capable to guide industry development toward certification during building materials development phase, keeping cost down and with good reliability, though not substituting certification itself. System design is described including choice of materials, temperature measurement instrumentation and temperature probes arrangement. Moreover a comparison with the norm prescriptions is included to pointing out differences and similarities, justifying the simplification of the proposed architecture. The calibration procedures of the whole system are described focusing on temperature measurement and analysis of thermal losses which affect the accuracy of the measure of thermal fluxes through the sample. Some preliminary results obtained by the system are presented concerning measures on homogeneous expanded polystyrene panels and a sample glass block wall. The thermal resistance values obtained allow to validate the system behaviour, pointing out the stability and accuracy of the results and their good agreement with those obtained with the standard procedure.