Numerical Investigations of Ellipsoid Shaped Filler on Heat Transport Behavior of Reinforced Polymer Composites

Abstract

Nowadays polymers are the preferred as compared to their rivals due to many advantageous properties. These are mainly divided into two categories namely thermosets and thermoplastics. Epoxy, which is a thermoset polymer, can be used for the purpose of the heat transfer. Enhancement of the thermal conductivity of polymer material can be achieved with the copper filler having higher thermal conductivity. In this paper, a numerical study based on the finite element method is performed to determine the thermal conductivity of the polymer composite. The effective thermal conductivity of composite materials is investigated by considering the thermal conductivity ratio between a particle and the matrix material, with and without the thermal contact resistance and volume fraction. The results show that the effective thermal conductivity rises with an increase in filler volume fraction if the thermal contact resistance is ignored. It is also found that the thermal conductivity decreases gradually with the increase in thermal contact resistance. Moreover, the decrease of thermal conductivity dominates in case of higher volume fraction for higher thermal contact resistance.