Importance of Interfaces
in Governing Thermal Transport
in Composite Materials: Modeling and Experimental Perspectives
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Abstract
Thermal management in polymeric composite materials has
become
increasingly critical in the air-vehicle industry because of the increasing
thermal load in small-scale composite devices extensively used in
electronics and aerospace systems. The thermal transport phenomenon
in these small-scale heterogeneous systems is essentially controlled
by the interface thermal resistance because of the large surface-to-volume
ratio. In this review article, several modeling strategies are discussed
for different length scales, complemented by our experimental efforts
to tailor the thermal transport properties of polymeric composite
materials. Progress in the molecular modeling of thermal transport
in thermosets is reviewed along with a discussion on the interface
thermal resistance between functionalized carbon nanotube and epoxy
resin systems. For the thermal transport in fiber-reinforced composites,
various micromechanics-based analytical and numerical modeling schemes
are reviewed in predicting the transverse thermal conductivity. Numerical
schemes used to realize and scale the interface thermal resistance
and the finite mean free path of the energy carrier in the mesoscale
are discussed in the frame of the lattice Boltzmann–Peierls–Callaway
equation. Finally, guided by modeling, complementary experimental
efforts are discussed for exfoliated graphite and vertically aligned
nanotubes based composites toward improving their effective thermal
conductivity by tailoring interface thermal resistance