Quantitative analyzing the effect of h‐BN on the thermal conductivity of HDPE‐BN composite through multi‐objective optimization

Abstract

The main focus of this investigation is to quantitatively analyze the opposing effect of filler on the desired properties of fabricated composite specimens. First, the high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) powders with proportions of 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 wt% of boron nitride (BN) are mixed by the ball mill processes and further hot molded to fabricate HDPE‐BN composites. The density and thermal conductivity of fabricated composites are then measured, and the variation of these properties with the added volume percent of BN is determined. The notions of multi‐objective optimization are employed to obtain the optimum BN content to maximize thermal conductivity while minimizing density. The relative importance of these properties is calculated by applying the entropy method to the variation of thermal conductivity and density with the BN content. It is observed that the positive effect of BN on the thermal conductivity has potentially the same importance as its negative effect on the density. In a more general consideration, various hypothetical fillers with a wide range of thermal conductivities and densities are studied by the same procedure. It is obtained that density has a more determinative rule in the efficiency of a particular filler in circumstances where both thermal conductivity and density have practical importance. While the results of this investigation are presented in terms of thermal conductivity and density, the procedure used here can be applied to any set of properties with practical significance.