Multiscale thermal modeling of cured cycloaliphatic epoxy/carbon fiber composites

Abstract

Cycloaliphatic epoxies (CEs) are commonly used for structural applications requiring improved resistance to elevated temperatures, UV radiation, and moisture relative to other epoxy materials. Accurate and efficient computational models can greatly facilitate the development of CE‐based composite materials for applications such as Aluminum Conductor Composite Core high‐voltage power lines. In this study, a new multiscale modeling method is developed for CE resins and composite materials to efficiently predict thermal properties (glass‐transition temperature, thermal expansion coefficient, and thermal conductivity). The predictions are compared to experimental data, and the results indicate that the multiscale modeling method can accurately predict thermal properties for CE‐based materials. For 85% crosslink densities, the predicted glass‐transition temperature, thermal expansion coefficient, and thermal conductivity are 279 °C, 109 ppm °C−1, 0.24 W m−1 K−1, respectively. Thus, this multiscale modeling method can be used for the future development of improved CE composite materials for thermal applications. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018, 135, 46371.

Micro-Structure and Thermomechanical Properties of Crosslinked Epoxy Composite Modified by Nano-SiO2: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation

“…As the temperature increased, the density of the EP showed a linear decrease. However, the density decrease rates in the glassy and rubbery state were different [40,41]. We plotted the density-temperature scatter diagram based on the temperature and density extracted during the annealing process.…”

Application of atomic stress to compute heat flux via molecular dynamics for systems with many-body interactions

“…While rigid formulation has been put forward for both obtaining local pressure [8,9] and handling many-body interactions [5,[10][11][12], approximations using atomic stress have also been applied with acceptable accuracy and a much greater ease of implementation [13][14][15], which is also the case for the widely used molecular dynamics package LAMMPS [16]. Owing to the similarity of pressure and heat flux formulation, the same atomic stress approximation has been applied to computing heat flux and thermal conductivity without any rigid validation for either molecular dynamics systems containing simple many-body interactions such as angle, torsion, or improper [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], or for more complex ones such as Stillinger-Weber, Tersoff, or AIREBO potentials .…”

Thermal conductivity improvement in electrically insulating silicone rubber composites by the construction of hybrid three‐dimensional filler networks with boron nitride and carbon nanotubes

“…Compared with ceramic fillers, carbonaceous fillers such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, and carbon fibers are considered to have better thermally conductive properties; they could be used to construct continuous thermally conducting networks at lower filler contents. For example, CNTs, as an excellent candidate for a thermally conductive filler, have an extremely high thermal conductivity of about 1000–4000 W m −1 K −1 along the in‐plane direction at 25 °C .…”