heater power

[WAJ_UK]

I now have 2 80 watt heaters for my test setup. I was planing to use both the heaters for 160 watts through a 10 mm by 10 mm die (high heat flux I know). My reasoning was that with higher power heaters I will get a larger difference in temperature between the heating surface and the coolant which should help reduce the percentage error. When calculating the difference between two similar values, small inaccuracies in the measurements become quite large percentage errors. Does this sound right? cheers

[bigben2k]

Actually, a higher power level would lead to higher secondary loss, which is very difficult to quantify. I'd stay away from a high power test.

Of course the right thing to do would be to try various power levels, and see if there's any correlation.

[WAJ_UK]

yeah probably best to try both and some values in between. I have some pretty good insulation around the heaters. I'll just have to suck it and see (so to speak)