Measuring and modeling the thermal conductivities of three-dimensionally woven fabric composites

The effect of a three-dimensional fiber reinforcement on the out-of-plane thermal conductivity of composite materials is investigated. Composite preforms with different fibers in the thickness direction were fabricated. After in fusion by using a vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding process, their through-thickness thermal conductivities were evaluated. The measured thermal conductivities showed a significant increase compared with those of a typical laminated composite. Although the through-thickness thermal conductivity of the samples increased with through-thickness fiber volume fraction, its values did not match those predicted by the simple rule of mixtures. By using finite-element models to better under stand the behavior of the composite material, improvements in an existing analytical model were performed to predict the effective thermal conductivity as a function of material properties and in-contact thermal properties of the composite. Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 241–254, March–April, 2009.