A Computational Investigation on Thermal Conductivity of Pine Wood Dust Filled Epoxy Composites

Experimental and computational investigation on the thermal conductivity in particulate filler filled (pine wood dust) epoxy composites have been studied in the present work. The thermal conductivity of particulate filled polymer composite is calculated experimentally using Unitherm Model 2022. This study shows that the incorporation of wood dust results in reduction of conductivity of epoxy resin and there by improves its thermal insulation capability. Further the thermal conductivity of particle filled composites has been calculated computationally using fuzzy logic approach. The value of effective thermal conductivity obtained for various composite models using Fuzzy logic are in reasonable agreement with the experimental values for a wide range of filler contents from about 6.5 Vol% to 35.9 Vol%.