A heated wire is inserted into the material, and the temperature change in the wire is recorded. This modification allows for the testing of solid samples. The calculation of k is similar to that in the hot wire procedure. A laser flash delivers a short pulse of heat to the front of the sample, and an infrared scanner observes the temperature change at the rear face as a function of time. The sample is placed in a pan.
Heaters raise the temperature of the sample pan and a reference pan at the same rate.
The apparent heat capacity for the sample can be measured from the different amounts of heat put into the two trays to raise their temperatures at the same rate. A DSC measurement is made on two samples of varying thickness. The difference in apparent heat capacity is caused by the time lag of heat passing through the sample. The DSC results and the different thicknesses can be used to find the thermal conductivity of the material. The guarded hot plate method would be ideal for this type of measurement.