Aluminum oxide, also known as alumina, is a high-performance ceramic material. It is a chemical compound of aluminum and oxygen. To its properties count good electrical insulation, high mechanical strength, high hardness, high resistance to corrosion and wear and has a rather high thermal conductivity for a ceramic material (about 30 -35 W/mK).
Due to these properties alumina has a broad application range, for example it is used in the production of aluminum metal, as an abrasive or as refractories.
The graph above shows an LFA measurement of the thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of an alumina sample in the temperature range from room temperature to 1000 °C.
For the density and the specific heat capacity, which are needed to calculate the thermal conductivity, literature values were used. The thermal conductivity at room temperature is about 32 W/mK, which fits to the above mentioned values.
One can see, that the thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity decrease with increasing temperature. The behavior of the properties with temperature corresponds to the expectations.
