A Study on Thermal Characteristic of Solid and Hollow Glass Microspheres Filled Polypropylene Composites

Abstract

The report regards the heat transfer in the polymer composites of solid glass micro-spheres (SGS) or hollow glass micro-spheres (HGS) filled with polypropylene (PP). The net effective thermal conductivities (Keff) of the polymer composites of PP and SGS or PP and HGS are estimated by analytical integral approach and its result was compared with ANSYS model and existed theoretical models. It was observed that the effect of thermal insulation in hollow glass spheres filled polypropylene composites is more than the solid glass spheres filled polypropylene composites and the net effective thermal conductivity (Keff) is linearly decreases with increases of volume fraction (φf) of filler and then decreased somewhat with increasing filler diameter. It was found that the analytical model is very close to ANSYS model and existing analytical models. Furthermore, the net effective thermal conductivity (Keff) of the three dimensional (3D) ANSYS model is lesser than two dimensional (2D) ANSYS model i.e. 3D ANSYS model is fairly closer with the experimental data than 2D ANSYS model. With improved insulation capability and light weight of composites, the solid glass micro spheres (SGS) and hollow glass micro-spheres (HGS) inserted polypropylene composites can be utilized in areas such as building materials, aviation industry and space flight, insulation boards, thermo flasks, food containers etc.Some other properties changed like enhanced wear resistance, increased reflective index, decreased coefficient of thermal expansion and increased the glass transition temperature.