HEAT CAPACITY MEASUREMENTS : PROGRESS IN EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES.

Abstract

The heat capacity of a substance is related to the structure and constitution of the material and its measurement is a standard technique of physical investigation. In this review, the classical methods are first analysed briefly and their recent extensions arc summarized. The merits and demerits of these methods are pointed out. The newer techniques such as the a.c. method, the relaxation method, the pulse methods, the laser flash calorimetry and other methods developed to extend the heat capacity measurements to newer classes of materials and to extreme conditions of sample geometry, pressure and temperature are comprehensively reviewed. Examples of recent work and details of the experimental srtems are provided for each method. The introduction of automation in control
systems for the monitoring of the experiments and for data processing is also discussed. Two hundered and eighty references and 18 figures are used to illustrate the various techniques.