Osako and Ito, Technical Report of ISEI Ser.A. No.67 September 1997

Simultaneous thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity measurementsof mantle materials up to 10GPa
Masahiro Osako
National Science Museum, Shinjuku ,Tokyo 169, Japan
Eiji. Ito
Institute for Study of the Earth 's Interior, Misasa, Tottori 682-0l, Japan
A one-dimensional transient (pulse) method for thermophysical property measurements has been
applied to small samples of mantle materials in a uniaxial split-sphere high-pressure apparatus.
Thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of fused silica and garnet have been measured. Atpressures up to 8.3 GPa the thermal conductivity and the thermal diffusivity of fused silica
decreases with increasing pressure. For a principal mantle mineral, garnet, the pressure derivativesof thermal conductivity and the thermal diffusivity are positive: they are 2 per cent of increase per 1
GPa at the room temperature over 5GPa.
[thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, earth materials, pulse method, split-sphere apparatus]
1. Introduction
Heat transfer in the Earth's mantle is the one of the important factors for the dynamics of theglobe acting as a heat engine generated by the temperature difference between the hot interior andthe cold surface. Estimating magnitude of thermal conduction in the earth by experiments for earth's
materials is a practical tools of approach to this problem. Needless to say, thermal conductivity or
thermal diffusivity measurements should be made at conditions on going in the earth, namely hightemperature and high pressure. This needs troublesome experimental environment that controllingheat flow in a sample is difficult because of the surrounding pressure medium. One successful way
to avoid this issue is to design a method of measurement using a sample of cylindrical symmetry.
However, that method require a comparative large samples for study of the earth's interior; theimportant mantle minerals including materials obtained only by high pressure synthesis has usuallya small, mm-sized volume.
In this report we present a simultaneous thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity
measurements of mantle materials under pressure using a one-dimentional transient (pulse) method.
This method is favorable for mantle materials, because samples are small compared to those forother methods using cylindrical symmetry. Of course, this method can be applied to materials
which are anisotropic in thermal conductivity. In addition. the heat capacity can be obtained bycomparing the thermal diffusivity and the thermal conductivity.
2. Experimental procedure
We have applied a transient method under pressure developed by Dzavadov (1975) to a small
samples of mantle materials. Three thin sample disks with equal thickness are stacked. A thinplanar heater is installed between the two disks, and a thermocouple is inserted to the other joint ofthe disks. A electric pulse current is supplied to the heater, and the temperature change in thesample is detected by the thermocouple. Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of the measurement.
For the condition that temperature is constant at the end of the sample the temperature change(∆T) at any point in the sample is expressed as∆T= A∑n-1∞(1/n2)sin(nπ/3)sin(nπx/d)exp(-n2Bt)[exp(n2Bτ)-1] (t >τ) ,where the origin of time (t) is the rising point of pulse heating, x is the distance from the end of thesample on the heater side, τ is the width of the pulse current, d is the total thickness of the sample.
The thermocouple is placed at x= 2d/3.
In this expression A and B are combined with the physical properties as
A= 2Wd/π2λS, and B = π2a/d2,1

Osako and Ito, Technical Report of ISEI Ser.A. No.67 September 1997

where, a is the thermal diffusivity and λ is the thermal conductivity of the sample, W is the powerof the pulse current and S is the cross section of the heater.
The temperature change, ∆T, has a maximum; The parameter B combined thermal diffusivity isdetermined so that the maximum point of the summation in the ∆T's expression for x= 2d/3
coincides the time at the observed temperature peak for a heating duration, τ. In practice, the sum is
cut off to the first 10 terms in the calculation on a personal computer. So thermal conductivity iscalculated by using S,W and the observed value of peak temperature.
Measurements have been made in the uniaxial split-sphere high-pressure apparatus, USSA-1000
at the Institute for Study of the Earth's Interior, Okayama University. In this study magnesia
octahedrons of 18mm edge length containing Cr2O3, were used for pressure medium. The
truncation edge length of tungsten carbide anvils was 11 mm. Pressure generated was calibrated by
Iizuka (1996) using BiI/II and BIII/IV phase transition for the same gasket and compression-pad
design at room temperature.
Figure 2 shows the sample assembly in a octahedral pressure medium. To make uniform heating,a planar heater made of nickel-chromium alloy is cut into groove by photographic etching. The
thickness is 0.03mm and the diameter is 3.8mm. The heater has a electric resistance of about 25
ohms. A alumel-chromel thermocouple with a flat cross section of 0.03mmx0.3mm is used. Total
thickness of the sample is set to from 0.9mm to 1.1 mm. The electric power supplied to the heater isabout 15W and the pulse width (duration) ranged from 2ms to 10ms. Examples of temperaturerecords on a storage oscilloscope are shown in Fig. 3. The uncertainty of the measurement is 7 percent for thermal diffusivity and 4 per cent for thermal conductivity. These estimates come from thelimit of determination in the sample thickness and from the time resolution in record of thetemperature profile.
3. Results(1) Fused silica
Figure 4 shows the pressure effect on thermal diffusivity and the thermal conductivity of fusedsilica. The total thickness of the sample is 1.050mm. The sample lengths reduced with pressure
increase are calibrated by compression data (Schroeder et al., 1990). Thermal diffusivity of fusedsilica decreases with increasing pressure up to 8.3 GPa at room temperature. This behavior agreewith the previous data obtained by a Ångström method using a sample of cylindrical symmetry(Katsura, 1993) .
(2) Garnet
Figure 5 shows the preliminary results of thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of natural
garnet at 17˚C up to 8.3 GPa. The garnet sample, from India, is classified as almandine, with acomposition of Mg0.51Fe2.29Mn0.20Al2Si3012. The total thickness of the sample is 1.023mm. In
calculating the the thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity at high pressures, the compressionof almandine (Sato et al., 1978) is taken account. The cubic symmetry crystal, like garnet isthermally isotropic; The crystallographic axis of the sample was taken to arbitrary direction. The
thermal conductivity at lower pressures has good agreement with the previous results for almandine(3.3Wm-1K-1, at 23˚C: Horai,1971). Both the thermal diffusivity and the thermal conductivity of
the garnet increase with increasing pressure, however, their pressure (P) derivatives are small,namely dlna/dP~ 0.02/GPa and dlnλ/dP~ 0.02/GPa in the pressure range from 5 GPa to 8.2 GPa.
4. Concluding remarks
Using a small samples, this simple method will bring information on the pressure effects ofthermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of mantle materials. The large contrast of thermal
conductivity between the sample and the surrounding material could ensure sufficientapproximation in the boundary conditions for the measurement. It is well known that thermal
conductivity and thermal diffusivity of mantle material s vary large with temperature;
Measurements at high temperatures and at high pressures are the next step of this experiment.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. K. Yokoyama for his EPMA analysis of the garnet used in this experiment.
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Osako and Ito, Technical Report of ISEI Ser.A. No.67 September 1997

This work was partly supported by Grant-in Aid for Scientific Research from Ministry ofEducation, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan (No. 04640405), and was carried out by the joint
research in the Institute for Study of the Earth's Interior, Okayama University.
References
Dzhavadov, L. N. Measurement of thermophysical properties of dielectrics under pressure, HighTemp. High Press., 7:49-54 (1975).
Horai, K., Thermal conductivity of rock-forming minerals. J. Geophys. Res., 76:1278-1308 (1971)
Iizuka, Y., Experimental study on the slab-mantle interactions in subduction zones and its
implications for the mantle recycling throughout the subduction zones. Ph. D. Thesis,
Okayama University, (1996).
Kanamori, H., H. Mizutani and N. Fujii, Method of thermal diffusivity Measurement. J. Phys.
Earth, 17:43-53 (1969).
Katsura, T., Thermal diffusivity of silica glass at pressures up to 9GPa. Phys. Chem. Minerals,
20:201-208 (1993).
Osako, M., Thermal conductivity of oxides and silicates relevant to geophysics. Bull. Natl .Sci.
Mus.,Tokyo, Ser. E, 14: 15-30 (1991).
Rika Nenpyo (Chronological Scientific Tables, in Japanese), National Astronomical Observatory(ed.), Maruzen Co., Ltd., Tokyo, ( I 997).
Sato, Y. M. Akaogi and S. Akimoto, Hydrostatic compression of the synthetic garnets pyrope andalmandine. J. Geophys. Res., 83:335-338 (1978).
Schroeder, J., T. G. Bildeau and X. Zhao, Brillouin and Raman scattering from glasses under highpressure. High Press. Res., 4:53 1-533 (1990).

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Osako and Ito, Technical Report of ISEI Ser.A. No.67 September 1997

Fig.1. Schematic diagram of the one-dimensional transient (pulse) method of thermal diffusivity
and thermal conductivity measurements

Fig. 2. A sample for a one-dimensional transient method of thermal diffusivity and thermal
conductivity measurements in a octahedral pressure medium.

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Osako and Ito, Technical Report of ISEI Ser.A. No.67 September 1997

Fig 3. The records of temperature (emf of the thermocouple) on a storage oscilloscope. Left: Fused
quartz at 1.9GPa. The sample thickness is 1.050mm at zero pressure. Heating duration is 10.0ms
with a power of 11.1W. Right: Garnet at 8.3GPa. The sample thickness is 1.023mm at zeropressure. Heating duration is 5.0ms with a power of 10.0W

5Osako and Ito, Technical Report of ISEI Ser.A. No.67 September 1997

Fig. 4. The thermal diffusivity (open squares) and the thermal conductivity (solid squares) of fusedsilica as a function of pressure at 15˚C. The error bars express the uncertainties of themeasurements coming from the limit of determination in the sample thickness and from the time
resolution in record of the temperature profile. The open diamond denotes the thermal diffusivity byKanamori et al. (1969) at the same temperature under one atmosphere, and the solid diamond is thethermal conductivity at O˚C under one atmosphere (Rika Nenpyo,1997). The dashed line denotes
the thermal diffusivity of fused silica at 373K by the Ångström method using cylindrical symmetry(Katsura, 1992).

Fig . 5. The thermal diffusivity (open squares) and the thermal conductivity (solid squares) ofalmandine garnet as a function of pressure at 17˚C. The meaning of the error bars is the same as inFigure 2. The open diamond denote the thermal diffusivity at 290K under zero pressure (Osako,1991). The solid diamond is the thermal conductivity of natural almandine at 23˚C under one
atmosphere (Horai,1971).

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