Low Temperature Thermal Conductivity of Woven Fabric Glass Fibre Composites.

Fibre reinforced composites are replacing conventional materials due to its compatible and superior properties at low temperatures. Transverse thermal conductivity of plain fabric E-glass/Epoxy composites with the fibre concentrations of 32.5%, 35.2%, 39.2% and 48.9% has been studied in a GM-refrigerator based experimental setup using guarded hotplate technique. Experiments are carried out with the sets of stability criteria. This paper presents the investigation of the influence of the fibre concentration and temperature on the thermal conductivity of fabric composites from 30 K to 300K. It is observed from the experimental results that thermal conductivity increases with the increase of temperature and also with fibre concentration with different rate in different temperature range. The series model has been used to predict the thermal conductivity and compared with the experimental results. It is observed that below the crossover temperature of the composites, which varies from 150–225K depending upon their fibre concentration, the experimental results are within 10% with that of predicted values. The possible causes of variation are analyzed. The physical phenomenon behind the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity is discussed in detail. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]