Transient surface temperature and heat flux measurement are
very important requirements in umpteen heat transfer research.
Many engineering applications do require precise information of
time varying short duration temperatures due to fast change in heat
flux. The typical examples include rapid fluctuations of temperatures
on the cylinder walls of internal combustion engines [1,2],
convective surface heating rate variations on aerodynamic models
exposed to high speed flows [3,4] and boiling experiments [5]. Thus,
it calls for the need of compact fast response thermal sensors for
capturing the rapid variation of temperatures. During short duration
time scale of measurement, the surface heat flux is obtained
through solution of one-dimensional heat-conduction equation
with semi-infinite medium for a step change in temperature. For a
known surface temperature history ðTsÞ, the instantaneous heat flux
ðqsÞ can be deduced from Duhamel’s superposition integra