The paper presents the application of similarity theory to investigations of transient heat transfer in materials with complex structure. It describes the theoretical-experimental method for identification and design of the structure of two-component composite walls based on the research of the thermal diffusivity for the composite and its matrix separately. The thermal diffusivity was measured by means of the modified flash method. The method was tested on two samples of double-layer ‘epoxy resin – polyamide’. All the investigated samples had the same diameter of 12 mm and thickness ranging from 1.39–2.60 mm and their equivalent value of thermal diffusivity ranging from (1.21–1.98)×10-7m2/s. Testing the method and research on carbon/epoxy composites was carried out at temperatures close to room temperature.

The paper presents the adaptation of the modified pulse method for investigating temperature characteristics of thermal diffusivity in the vicinity of the second-order phase transition points. The principle of the adaptation consists in the modified in relation to the original method, development of the characteristics of temperature changes between boundary surfaces of a flat-parallel specimen after the laser shot onto its front surface. The application of this adaptation was illustrated with investigation into thermal diffusivity of nickel (99.9% wt) in the temperature range of 20-380◦C. In all cases the measurement error was less than 3%, and the averaging interval for the measured values of thermal diffusivity was not greater than 1.2 K.