Investigations on Thermal Conductivity of Palm Fibre Reinforced Polyester Composites

Abstract

The palm fibre reinforced polyester composites (PFRP) have been prepared by using hand-lay-up technique. The thermal conductivity of the palm fibre reinforced polyester composites at different volume fractions of the fibre is determined experimentally by using Lee's apparatus. The principle of heat transfer by conduction through a bad conductor is equal to the quantity of heat transfer by radiation from metallic disc has been applied. The experimental results shows that the thermal conductivity of the composite increases with increase in fibre percentage. Experimental results are compared with rule of mixture model, parallel model and Maxwell model to describe the variation of the thermal conductivity versus the volume fraction of the fibre. All three models exhibited results close to each other at low fibre content. It has been found that the errors associated with rule of mixtures, parallel model and Maxwell's correlations with respect to experimental ones lie in the range of 33-79%, 28 to73% and 31 to 75% respectively.