Development of a NIST Standard Reference Database for Thermal Conductivity of Building Materials

The development of a National Institute of Standards and Technolgy (NIST) Standard Reference Database for the thermal conductivity of building materials is presented. The source of the data is the collection of thermal conductivity measurements produced by NIST from 1932 to 1983 using the NIST 200 mm guarded-hot-plate apparatus. During its service, the apparatus was considered the U.S. National Standard for measurements of thermal conductivity of building materials and was instrumental in the early development of ASTM Test Method C 177 for the guarded-hot-plate method. The database currently contains 2175 records of thermal conductivity data for a variety of thermal insulations including cellular plastics, corkboard, glass fiber and other mineral fiber insulations as well as other building materials such as fiberboard and light-weight concrete. The final product will be available for public distribution on the Internet through the World Wide Web.