Official Publication: New International Formulation for the Thermal Conductivity of H₂O

Official updates to the international formulation for the thermal conductivity of water and steam for scientific and industrial use have been published by the American Institute of Physics' Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data. The paper, the result of a years-long effort by the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS), was co-authored by Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Institute for Physical Science and Technology Distinguished University Professor Emeritus Jan V. Sengers.

The new standard, adopted in January 2012, was officially released on August 23, 2012. According to the abstract, "The International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS) encouraged an extensive research effort to update the IAPS Formulation 1985 for the Thermal Conductivity of Ordinary Water Substance, leading to the adoption of a Release on the IAPWS Formulation 2011 for the Thermal Conductivity of Ordinary Water Substance." The new formulation "...describes the development and evaluation of the 2011 formulation, which provides a correlating equation for the thermal conductivity of water for fluid states from the melting temperature up to 1173 K and 1000 MPa with uncertainties from less than 1% to 6%, depending on the state point."

For More Information:

See: M. L. Huber, R. A. Perkins, D. G. Frien, J. V. Sengers, M. J. Assael, I. N. Metaxa, K. Miyagawa, R. Hellmann, and E. Vogel. New International Formulation for the Thermal Conductivity of H₂O. J. Phys. Chem. Ref. Data 41, 033102 (2012) View online »

For more information on the history of the project and Professor Sengers' long-standing involvement with the IAPS, please see:

Published September 4, 2012