The LHC, the new superconducting particle accelerator presently under construction at CERN, makes use of some 1200 dipole magnets for orbit bending and 500 quadrupole magnets for focusing/defocusing of the circulating high-energy proton beams. Two or three column-type support posts sustain each cryomagnet. The choice of a convenient material for these supports is critical, because of the required high positioning accuracy of the magnets in their cryostats and stringent thermal budget requirements imposed by the LHC cryogenic system. A glass-fibre/epoxy resin composite has been chosen for its good combination of high stiffness and low thermal conductivity over the 2-293 K temperature range. Plies of long glass-fibres are stacked optimally yielding the best mechanical behaviour. However, heat leaks from the supports are influenced by the thermal characteristics of the composite, which in turn depend on the orientation of the fibres. To study the dependence of the thermal conductivity on fibre's orientation, we performed high precision thermal conductivity measurements of various samples of glass-fibre/epoxy resin composite. The results of the thermal conductivity measurements are compared with integral measurements on support posts for LHC cryomagnets and with mixing models
