Active thermal testing of moisture in bricks

Measurement by active thermal testing of effusivity an porous moistened material is analyzed. Moistened bricks show that thermal properties of this porous solid depend on water content. Various solutions of the heat transfer problem are taken into account and approximations introduced to simplify the data reduction are discussed. Error analysis is also considered to justify the adoption of relative technique. Errors analysis speaks strongly in favour of reference method which allows to avoid the measurement of incident energy and optical properties of a specimen. This procedure allows to introduce a rather simple expression to extract moisture values from one-side thermal test. Diffusivity measurement trough flash method is proposed to determine the influence of moisture on the variation of thermal conductivity.