Transient heat pulse techniques allow specific heat (C) and thermal co
nductivity (kappa) to be determined from a single measurement. We have
developed a new numerical fitting technique to analyse such data, whi
ch improves the accuracy of results obtained from heat pulse calorimet
ry. In this paper we present two further improvements to this techniqu
e which compensate for the finite duration of the heat pulse injected
into the sample and any distortion of the temperature response caused
by measurement time constants.