ESTEC Calorimeter: Thirty-five Years of Measurements

The ESTEC Calorimeter device was commissioned 1974 and during 35 years of operation, nearly 100 different samples were tested. The calorimeter was designed for heat transfer measurements on blankets of multi layered insulation (MLI). The measurement device is a flat circular double sided hot plate calorimeter with a sample diameter of 480 mm. In this work an excerpt of the most significant measurement results collected during the last 35 years are presented and some MLI lay-ups are compared. This comparison focuses on dependencies of achievable performance on lay-up parameters, for example used materials, surface properties and number of layers.