Effective thermal conductivity of epoxy matrix composites filles with coconut coir dust

Abstract

The current work deals with numerical and experimental analysis of thermal conductivity of epoxy matrix composites filled with coconut coir dust. The numerical analysis proceeds with designing of 3-dimensional spheres-in-cube models with filler concentration ranging from 0-20% volume (approximately) and its thermal analysis. A commercially available software ANSYS is used as the tool for numerical analysis. The results are compared with effective thermal conductivity (Keff) values obtained from experiment and other established models such as Rule-of-Mixture (ROM), Maxwell’s model, and Aggarwal-Satapathy model. For experimental analysis coconut coir dust particle reinforced epoxy composites are fabricated using hand lay-up technique and the thermal conductivity values are measured with the UnithermTM model 2022 tester according to the ASTM standard E-1530. The present work reveals that the reinforcement of the coconut coir dust particles result in reduction of thermal conductivity of epoxy and upon increment of filler concentration the thermal conductivity reduces consistently. It is found that the reinforcement of 20 weight% of coconut coir dust particles, effective thermal conductivity of composite decreases substantially. With enhanced heat insulation capacity, these reinforced epoxy composites can find their application in insulated wall construction, food container, thermal flask and at such thermal insulation applications.