Geometrical Effect on Thermal Conductivity of Unidirectional Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composite along Different In-plane Orientations

This paper focuses on the anisotropic characteristics of the in-plane thermal conductivity of fiber-reinforced polymer composite based on experiment and simulation. Thermal conductivity along different in-plane orientations was measured by laser flash analysis (LFA) and steady-state heat flow method. Their heat transfer processes were simulated to reveal the geometrical effect on thermal conduction. The results show that the in-plane thermal conduction of unidirectional carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer composite is greatly influenced by the sample geometry at an in-plane orientation angle between 0° to 90°. By defining radius-to-thickness as a dimensionless shape factor for the LFA sample, the apparent thermal conductivity shows a dramatic change when the shape factor is close to the tangent of the orientation angle (tanθ). Based on finite element analysis, this phenomenon was revealed to correlate with the change of the heat transfer process. When the shape factor is larger than tanθ, the apparent thermal conductivity is consistent with the estimated value according to the theoretical model. For a sample with a shape factor smaller than tanθ, the apparent thermal conductivity shows a slow growth around a low value, which seriously deviates from the theory estimation. This phenomenon was revealed to correlate with the change of the heat transfer process from a continuous path to a zigzag path. These results will be helpful in optimizing the ply scheme of composite laminates for thermal management applications.