Precision calorimeter

Funded by the European Regional Development Fund

Calorimetry is a constitutive method in material science for the in-situ characterization of phase transformations. The knowledge of phase transformations is essential for the assessment of manufacturing processes, material structures and resulting materials properties. Calorimetry at the University of Rostock is operated in the competence center °CALOR, which is located in the research building of the Department Life, Light & Matter of the Interdisciplinary Faculty.

The competence center °CALOR has several calorimeters meant for different heating and cooling rates in the range of approx. 10-2 K/s to 106 K/s. That implies that manufacturing processes can be imitated which heating and cooling rates are in this range. However, the physical understanding of many phase transformation and manufacturing processes also requires the investigation of in particular slower (close to equilibrium) heating and cooling rates in the range of about 10-4 K/s to 10-2 K/s. Specifically this applies to those manufacturing processes in which the material behaviour of faster processes must be derived from the very slow equilibrium-related behaviour. Thanks to the ERDF funding, a precision calorimeter in the range of heating and cooling rates of approx. 10-4 K/s to 10-2 K/s could be procured.