After Café: Thermal Analysis Capabilities, Trade Offs, and Limitations

While thermal property analyses (TGA, DSC, SDT) are often considered routine techniques the published literature demonstrates that these are frequently misused or underutilized.  I will review the capabilities of the MCL thermal analysis suite to include highlighting the less obvious information that can be obtained with each technique.  Additionally, the tradeoffs associated with each technique will be discussed to provide practical guidance for choosing the proper analyses.  Finally, I will discuss what characterization should be performed prior to thermal analyses and introduce the “health check” tests which MCL routinely performs to ensure our instrumentation is operating properly.