In an environment that experiences drastically changing temperatures it is potentially more energy efficient to use insulative walls that can change their apparent thermal conductivities. This paper suggests a nano-porous material able to change its thermal conductivity by a factor of 3 varying the pressure upon it from 1 to 100 kPa. Thermal conductivity measurements are made in-situ by an airtight guarded heat flow meter....
Aerogels are nano-porous materials with impressive thermal insulation properties. This study uses a new theoretical model to predict the effective thermal conductivity of aerogels based on gas and solid conduction, as well as thermal radiation. A thermal constant analyzer measured the influence of gas pressure, atmosphere, and temperature on the thermal conductivity of nano-porous materials using the transient plane source (TPS) method. Results showed that the experimental thermal conductivity values ...