Thermal and Electrical Properties of Nanoparticle Oriented Epoxy/BN/SiC Composites for Superconducting Magnet.

Epoxy resin is widely used in magnetic confinement fusion reactors, and high thermal conductivity is also required to dissipate heat rapidly under the cooling and quench condition. In this paper, epoxy/BN/SiC composites are cured under ac and dc electric fields. An electric field is used to induce nanoparticle orientation to obtain higher thermal conductivity. Thermal and electrical properties of the prepared materials were tested. The results show that electric field induction can improve the thermal conductivity of composite. The orientation of SiC particles along the electric field could cause the increase of bulk conductivity. Charge dissipation of the filled samples becomes slower compared with the pure epoxy. The effect of ac electric field induction is larger than that of the dc electric field, which would affect the conductivity, charge, and trap characteristics of composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]