Thermal barrier coatings are engineered to provide sustained thermal protection to diesel/gas turbine engine components that are exposed to excessive heat loads. A reliable, non-intrusive and quantitative thermal property measurement is in high demand by the industry to assess coating performance since current complex methodologies are only capable of supplying order of magnitude approximations. Through a combination of analytical inverse/direct conduction solutions and modern infrared based sensors, it is possible to refine the limitations of the present technologies.