ABSTRACT
Thermal properties of solids are obtained by fitting the exact complex photothermal model to the normalized photoacoustic (PA) signal in the front configuration. Simple closed-form expressions for the amplitude and phase are presented in all frequency ranges. In photoacoustic it has been common practice to assume that all the absorptions of radiation take place in the sample. However, in order to obtain the accurate thermal properties it is necessary to consider the PA signal contributions produced at the cell walls. Such contributions were considered in our study. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed methodology, commercial stainless steel layers AISI 302 were analyzed. It is shown that using our approach the obtained thermal diffusivity and effusivity were in good agreement with those reported in the literature. Also, a detailed procedure for the calculation of the standard error in the thermal properties is discussed.
