Computational Materials Science 48 (2010) 576–581

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Computational Materials Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/commatsci

A computational and experimental investigation on thermal conductivity

of particle reinforced epoxy composites
Rajlakshmi Nayak a,*, Tarkes Dora P. b, Alok Satapathy a
a
National Institute of Technology, Rourkela 769 008, India
b
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620 015, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The finite element method (FEM) is a powerful computational technique for approximate solutions to a
Received 25 December 2009 variety of ‘‘real-world” engineering problems having complex domains subjected to general boundary
Received in revised form 10 February 2010 conditions. In this paper FEM is implemented to determine the effective thermal conductivity of partic-
Accepted 16 February 2010
ulate filled polymer composites and is validated by experimentation. A commercially available finite-ele-
Available online 12 March 2010
ment package ANSYS is used to for this numerical analysis. Three-dimensional spheres-in-cube lattice
array models are constructed to simulate the microstructure of composite materials for various filler con-
Keywords:
centrations ranging from about 6 to 36 vol.%. Composites with similar filler contents are fabricated by
Polymer composite
Pine wood dust reinforcement
hand layup technique by reinforcing micro-sized pine wood dust in epoxy resin. Guarded heat flow meter
Thermal conductivity test method is used to measure the thermal conductivity of these composites using the instrument Uni-
Finite-element analysis therm™ Model 2022 as per ASTM-E1530. This study shows that the incorporation of pine wood dust
results in reduction of conductivity of epoxy resin and thereby improves its thermal insulation capability.
With addition of 6.5 vol.% of filler, the thermal conductivity of epoxy is found to decrease by about 19.8%
and with about 36 vol.% of filler addition, a 57.3% reduction in thermal conductivity of neat epoxy is
achieved. The experimentally measured conductivity values are compared with the numerically calcu-
lated ones and also with the existing theoretical and empirical models. The values obtained using
finite-element analysis (FEA) are found to be in reasonable agreement with the experimental values.
Ó 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction play an important role in improving electrical, mechanical and

Hard particulate fillers consisting of ceramic or metal particles
and fiber fillers made of glass are being used these days to dramat-
ically improve the mechanical properties such as wear resistance,
even up to three orders of magnitude [1]. Various kinds of poly-
mers and polymer matrix composites reinforced with metal parti-
cles have a wide range of industrial applications such as heaters,
electrodes [2], composites with thermal durability at high temper-
ature [3], etc. These engineering composites are desired due to
their low density, high corrosion resistance, ease of fabrication
and low cost [4–6]. Similarly, ceramic filled polymer composites
have been the subject of extensive research in last two decades.
The inclusion of inorganic fillers into polymers for commercial
applications is primarily aimed at the cost reduction and stiffness
improvement [7,8]. Along with fiber-reinforced composites, the
composites made with particulate fillers have been found to per-
form well in many real operational conditions. When silica parti-
cles are added into a polymer matrix to form a composite, they
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jhilli02@gmail.com (R. Nayak).
thermal properties of the composites [9,10]. Currently, particle size
is being reduced rapidly and many studies have focused on how
single-particle size affects mechanical properties [11–17]. The
shape, size, volume fraction, and specific surface area of such
added particles have been found to affect mechanical properties
of the composites greatly. In this regard, Yamamoto et al. [18] re-
ported that the structure and shape of silica particle have signifi-
cant effects on the mechanical properties such as fatigue
resistance, tensile and fracture properties. Nakamura et al. [19–
21] discussed the effects of size and shape of silica particle on
the strength and fracture toughness based on particle–matrix
adhesion and also found an increase of the flexural and tensile
strength as specific surface area of particles increased.
Considerable work has been reported on the subject of heat
conductivity in polymers by Hansen and Ho [22], Peng and Landel
[23], Choy and Young [24], Tavman [25], etc. It is well known that
thermal transport increases significantly in the direction of orien-
tation and decreases slightly in the direction perpendicular to the
orientation. But most of these studies were confined to the thermal
behaviour of neat polymers only and not to their composites.
Reports are available in the existing literature on experimental as

0927-0256/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2010.02.025
 R. Nayak et al. / Computational Materials Science 48 (2010) 576–581
well as numerical and analytical studies on thermal conductivity of
some filled polymer composites [26–38]. The fillers most fre-
quently used are aluminum particles, copper particles, brass parti-
cles, short carbon fiber, carbon particles, graphite, aluminum
nitrides and magnetite particles. Progelhof et al. [26] was the first
to present an exhaustive overview on models and methods for pre-
dicting the thermal conductivity of composite systems. Procter and
Solc [39] used Nielsen model as a prediction to investigate the
thermal conductivity of several types of polymer composites filled
with different fillers and confirmed its applicability. Nagai and Lai
[40] found that Bruggeman model for Al2O3/epoxy system and a
modified form of Bruggeman model for AlN/epoxy system are both
good prediction theories for thermal conductivity. Griesinger et al.
[41] reported that thermal conductivity of low-density PE in-
creased from 0.35 for an isotropic sample, to the value of 50 W/
m K for a sample with an orientation ratio of 50. The thermal
and mechanical properties of copper powder filled poly-ethylene
composites are found by Tavman [25] while Sofian et al. [37] inves-
tigated experimentally on thermal properties such as thermal con-
ductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat of metal (copper,
zinc, iron, and bronze) powder filled HDPE composites in the range
of filler content 0–24% by volume. They observed a moderate in-
crease in thermal conductivity up to 16% of metal powder filler
content. Mamunya et al. [42] also reported the improvement in
electrical and thermal conductivity of polymers filled with metal
powders. In a recent research Weidenfeller et al. [43] studied the
effect of the interconnectivity of the filler particles and its impor-
tant role in the thermal conductivity of the composites. They pre-
pared PP samples with different commercially available fillers by
extrusion and injection molding using various volume fractions
of filler content to systematically vary density and thermal trans-
port properties of these composites. Surprisingly, they measured
that the thermal conductivity of the PP has increased from 0.27
up to 2.5 W/m K with 30 vol.% talc in the PP matrix, while the same
matrix material containing the same volume fraction of copper
particles had a thermal conductivity of only 1.25 W/m K despite
the fact that copper particles have a thermal conductivity approx-
imately 40 times greater than that of talc particles. Tekce et al. [38]
noticed the strong influence of the shape factor of fillers on thermal
conductivity of the composite. While Kumlutas and Tavman [44]
carried out a numerical and experimental study on thermal con-
ductivity of particle filled polymer composites, Amar et al. reported
the existence of a possible correlation between thermal conductiv-
ity and wear resistance of particulate filled composites [45].
Many theoretical and empirical models have been proposed to
predict the effective thermal conductivity of two-phase mixtures.
Comprehensive review articles have discussed the applicability of
many of these models [46,26]. For a two-component composite,
the simplest alternatives would be with the materials arranged
in either parallel or series with respect to heat flow, which gives
the upper or lower bounds of effective thermal conductivity. For
the parallel conduction model:
kc ¼ ð1  ØÞkm þ Økf ð1Þ
where kc, km, kf are the thermal conductivities of the composite, the
matrix and the filler respectively and Ø is the volume fraction of
filler.
For series conduction model:
1 1Ø Ø
¼ þ ð2Þ
kc km kf
The correlations presented by Eqs. (1) and (2) are derived on the
basis of the rules-of-mixture. Tsao [47] derived an equation relat-
ing the two-phase solid mixture thermal conductivity to the con-
ductivity of the individual components and to two parameters
577
which describe the spatial distribution of the two phases. By
assuming a parabolic distribution of the discontinuous phase in
the continuous phase, Cheng and Vachon [48] obtained a solution
to Tsao’s [47] model that did not require knowledge of additional
parameters. Agari and Uno [49] propose a new model for filled
polymers, which takes into account parallel and series conduction
mechanisms. According to this model, the expression that governs
the thermal conductivity of the composite is:
log kc ¼ ØC 2 log kf þ ð1  ØÞ logðC 1 km Þ ð3Þ
where C1, C2 are experimentally determined constants of order
unity. C1 is a measure of the effect of the particles on the secondary
structure of the polymer, like crystallinity and the crystal size of the
polymer. C2 measures the ease of the particles to form conductive
chains. The more easily particles are gathered to form conductive
chains, the more thermal conductivity of the particles contributes
to change in thermal conductivity of the composite and C2 becomes
closer to 1. Later, they modified the model to take into account the
shape of the particles [50]. Generally, this semi-empirical model
seems to fit the experimental data well. However, adequate exper-
imental data is needed for each type of composite in order to deter-
mine the necessary constants.
For an infinitely dilute composite of spherical particles, the ex-
act expression for the effective thermal conductivity is given as:
 
k kd  kc
¼1þ3 ð4Þ
kc kd þ 2kc
where k, kc and kd are thermal conductivities of composite, contin-
uous-phase (matrix), and dispersed-phase (filler), respectively, and
Ø is the volume fraction of the dispersed-phase. Eq. (4) is the well-
known Maxwell equation [51] for dilute composites.
An exhaustive review of the published literature reveals that
most of the investigations are aimed at enhancing the thermal con-
ductivity of the polymer rather than attempting to improve its
insulation capabilities. Although a large number of particulates
have been used as fillers in the past, there is no report available
on bio-based materials like any kind of wood dust being used for
composite making. Investigation on thermal conductivity of partic-
ulate filled fiber-reinforced composites is rare and the understand-
ing of the relationship between the effective thermal conductivity
of a composite material and the micro-structural properties (vol-
ume fractions, distribution of particles, aggregation of particles,
properties of individual components, etc.) is far from satisfactory.
Besides, though it becomes clear that improved thermal conductiv-
ity in polymers may be achieved either by molecular orientation or
by the addition of conductive fillers, it is yet to be seen how the
incorporation of bio-based particulates with poor heat conductiv-
ity affects the overall conductivity of any polymer composite.
In view of the above, the present work is undertaken to investi-
gate numerically and experimentally the thermal conductivity of
epoxy matrix composites filled with pine wood dust. The objec-
tives of this work include fabrication of a new class of low cost
composites using pine wood dust as the reinforcing filler with an
objective to improve the insulating properties of epoxy resin.
Epoxy is already a known thermal barrier. Since this work aims
at developing some kind of a light, cheap and insulating material,
epoxy emerged as the first choice for the matrix material. Epoxy
is chosen primarily because it happens to be the most commonly
used polymer and because of its insulating nature (low value of
thermal conductivity, about 0.363 W/m K). It also reports the esti-
mation of the equivalent thermal conductivity of particulate–poly-
mer composite system using finite element method.
578 R. Nayak et al. / Computational Materials Science 48 (2010) 576–581
2. Experimental details
2.1. Matrix material
Epoxy LY 556 resin, chemically belonging to the ‘epoxide’ family
is used as the matrix material. Its common name is Bisphenol A
Diglycidyl Ether. The low temperature curing epoxy resin (Araldite
LY 556) and corresponding hardener (HY951) are mixed in a ratio
of 10:1 by weight as recommended. The epoxy resin and the hard-
ener are supplied by Ciba Geigy India Ltd. Epoxy is chosen primar-
ily because it happens to be the most commonly used polymer and
because of its insulating nature (low value of thermal conductivity,
about 0.363 W/m K).
2.2. Filler material (pine wood dust)
Pine wood dust (PWD) is generated during the cutting of pine
tree wood. Pine trees are found in the Himalayan subtropical re-
gion and this natural resource can be gainfully converted to value
added products. Various types of pine trees are found in this re-
gion; especially in HP, wide ranging tracts of Chir Pine are seen.
The scientific name of Chir Pine is Pinus roxburghii. Main organic
constituents of pine wood are: cellulose, glucomannan, xylan, lig-
nin and some extractives. Its dust particles appear as cream or dark
brown fibrous powder. It is chosen as the filler material in this
work mostly for its very low thermal conductivity (0.068 W/m K)
and low density (0.52 gm/cc). Moreover, it is renewable, eco-
friendly, available at low cost, non-toxic and basically the wood
dust is considered as a waste product.
2.3. Composite fabrication
The low temperature curing epoxy resin (LY 556) and corre-
sponding hardener (HY951) are mixed in a ratio of 10:1 by weight
as recommended. Pine wood dust (PWD) particles (collected from
HP) are reinforced in epoxy resin (density 1.1 gm/cc) to prepare the
composites. The dough (epoxy filled with PWD) is then slowly dec-
anted into the glass tubes, coated beforehand with wax and uni-
form thin film of silicone-releasing agent. The composites are
cast by conventional hand-lay-up technique in glass tubes so as
to get cylindrical specimens (dia. 9 mm, length 120 mm). Compos-
ite samples of four different compositions, as listed in Table 1 are
made. The mean particle size of pine wood dust used in samples
1 (6.5 vol.%), 2 (11.3 vol.%), 3 (26.8 vol.%) is 100 micron and in sam-
ple 4 (35.9 vol.%) it is 700 lm. The castings are left to cure at room
temperature for about 24 h after which the tubes are broken and
samples are released. Specimens of suitable dimension are cut
using a diamond cutter for further physical characterization and
thermal conductivity test.
2.4. Experimental determination of thermal conductivity
Unitherm™ Model 2022 is used to measure thermal conductiv-
ity of a variety of materials. These include polymers, ceramics,
composites, glasses, rubbers, some metals, and other materials of
low to medium thermal conductivity. Only a relatively small test
Table 1
List of composites fabricated by hand-lay-up technique.
Samples Composition
1 Epoxy + 6.5 vol.% (3.2 wt.%) filler
2 Epoxy + 11.3 vol.% (5.7 wt.%) filler
3 Epoxy + 26.8 vol.% (14.8 wt.%) filler
4 Epoxy + 35.9 vol.% (20.9 wt.%) filler
sample is required. Non-solids, such as pastes or liquids, can be
tested using special containers. Thin films can also be tested accu-
rately using a multi-layer technique. The tests are in accordance
with ASTM E-1530 Standard.
2.5. Operating principle of Unitherm™ 2022
A sample of the material is held under a uniform compressive
load between two polished surfaces, each controlled at a different
temperature. The lower surface is part of a calibrated heat flow
transducer. The heat flows from the upper surface, through the
sample, to the lower surface, establishing an axial temperature gra-
dient in the stack. After reaching thermal equilibrium, the temper-
ature difference across the sample is measured along with the
output from the heat flow transducer. These values and the sample
thickness are then used to calculate the thermal conductivity. The
temperature drop through the sample is measured with tempera-
ture sensors in the highly conductive metal surface layers on either
side of the sample.
By definition thermal conductivity means ‘‘The material prop-
erty that describes the rate at which heat flows with in a body
for a given temperature change.” For one-dimensional heat con-
duction the formula can be given as Eq. (5).
T1  T2
Q ¼ KA ð5Þ
x
where Q is the heat flux (W), K is the thermal conductivity (W/m K),
A is the cross-sectional area (m2), T1  T2 is the difference in tem-
perature (K), x is the thickness of the sample (m). The thermal resis-
tance of a sample can be given as
T1  T2
R¼ ð6Þ
Q =A
where R is the resistance of the sample between hot and cold sur-
faces (m2 K/W). From Eqs. (3) and (4) we can derive that
x
K¼ ð7Þ
R
In Unitherm™ 2022 the heat flux transducer measures the Q va-
lue and the temperature difference can be obtained between the
upper plate and lower plate. Thus the thermal resistance can be
calculated between the upper and lower surfaces. Giving the input
value of thickness and taking the known cross-sectional area, the
thermal conductivity of the samples can be calculated using Eq. (7).
3. Numerical analysis: concept of finite element method and
ANSYS
The finite element method (FEM), originally introduced by
Turner et al. [52], is a powerful computational technique for
approximate solutions to a variety of ‘‘real-world” engineering
problems having complex domains subjected to general boundary
conditions. FEA has become an essential step in the design or mod-
eling of a physical phenomenon in various engineering disciplines.
A physical phenomenon usually occurs in a continuum of matter
(solid, liquid, or gas) involving several field variables. The field
variables vary from point to point, thus possessing an infinite num-
ber of solutions in the domain.
The basis of FEM relies on the decomposition of the domain into
a finite number of sub-domains (elements) for which the system-
atic approximate solution is constructed by applying the varia-
tional or weighted residual methods. In effect, FEM reduces the
problem to that of a finite number of unknowns by dividing the
domain into elements and by expressing the unknown field vari-
able in terms of the assumed approximating functions within each
element. These functions (also called interpolation functions) are
 R. Nayak et al. / Computational Materials Science 48 (2010) 576–581 579

defined in terms of the values of the field variables at specific
points, referred to as nodes. Nodes are usually located along the
element boundaries, and they connect adjacent elements. The abil-
ity to discretize the irregular domains with finite elements makes
the method a valuable and practical analysis tool for the solution of
boundary, initial, and eigenvalue problems arising in various engi-
neering disciplines.
The FEM is a numerical procedure that can be used to obtain
solutions to a large class of engineering problems involving stress
analysis, heat transfer, fluid flow etc. ANSYS is general-purpose fi-
nite-element modeling package for numerically solving a wide
variety of mechanical problems that include static/dynamic, struc-
tural analysis (both linear and nonlinear), heat transfer, and fluid
problems, as well as acoustic and electromagnetic problems.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Numerical analysis
Using the finite-element program ANSYS, thermal analysis is
carried out for the conductive heat transfer through the composite
body. In order to make a thermal analysis, three-dimensional phys-
ical models with spheres-in-a-cube lattice array have been used to
simulate the microstructure of composite materials for four differ-
ent filler concentrations. Furthermore, the effective thermal con-
ductivities of these epoxy composites filled with pine wood dust
up to about 36% by volume is numerically determined using
ANSYS.
typical three-dimensional sphere-in-cube model with a body
centered cubic (BCC) structural arrangement for the composite
with pine wood dust concentration of 35.9 vol.% is illustrated
in Fig. 2. The temperature profiles obtained from FEM analysis
for the composites with particulate concentrations of 6.5, 11.3,
26.8 and 35.9 vol.% are presented in Fig. 3a–d respectively.
The values of effective thermal conductivities of the particulate
filled epoxy composites with varied proportions of pine wood dust
obtained using Maxwell’s correlation, rules-of-mixture model and
those obtained from FEM analysis are presented in Table 2. It pre-
sents a comparison among the results obtained using these models
with regard to the values of effective conductivity obtained
experimentally.
Fig. 4 presents comparative picture of the thermal conductiv-
ity values obtained from different methods. It is noticed that the
results obtained from the finite-element analysis using ANSYS
are closer to the measured values of effective thermal conduc-
tivity for composites of different filler content. On comparison,
it is found that while the errors associated with the FEM values
with respect to the experimental ones lie in the range of 3–13%,
the same for results from rules-of-mixture and Maxwell’s corre-
lation lie in the ranges of 2–44% and 4–28% respectively. The
percentage errors associated with each method for individual
composites are given as Table 3. It is further noted that while
the FEM and Maxwell’s model overestimate the value of thermal
conductivity the rules-of-mixture model underestimates the

4.2. Description of the problem

The determination of effective properties of composite materi-

als is of paramount importance for functional design and applica-
tion of composite materials. One of the important factors that
influence the effective properties and can be controlled to an
appreciable extent is the microstructure of the composite. Here,
microstructure means the shape, size distribution, spatial distribu-
tion and orientation distribution of the reinforcing inclusion in the
matrix. Although most composite possess inclusion of random dis-
tributions, great insight of the effect of microstructure on the effec-
tive properties can be gained from the investigation of composites
Fig. 1. Boundary conditions.
with periodic structure. System with periodic structures can be
more easily analyzed because of the high degree of symmetry
embedded in the system.
In the numerical analysis of the heat conduction problem, the
temperatures at the nodes along the surfaces ABCD is prescribed
as T1 (=100 °C) and the convective heat transfer coefficient of ambi-
ent is prescribed as 2.5 W/m2 K at ambient temperature of 27 °C.
The heat flow direction and the boundary conditions are shown
in Fig. 1. The other surfaces parallel to the direction of the heat flow
are all assumed adiabatic. The temperatures at the nodes in the
interior region and on the adiabatic boundaries are unknown.
These temperatures are obtained with the help of finite-element
program package ANSYS. In the analysis of the ideal case it will
be assumed that the composites are macroscopically homoge-
neous, locally both the matrix and filler are homogeneous and iso-
tropic, the thermal contact resistance between the filler and the
matrix is negligible, the composite lamina is free of voids and the
filler are arranged in a square periodic array/uniformly distributed
in matrix.
Thermal conductivities of epoxy composites filled with pine
wood dust particles to 36% by volume are numerically esti-
mated by using the spheres-in-cube model and the numerical
results are compared with the experimental results and also Fig. 2. Three-dimensional sphere-in-cube model with particle concentration of
with some of the existing theoretical and empirical models. A 35.9 vol.%.
580 R. Nayak et al. / Computational Materials Science 48 (2010) 576–581

Fig. 3. Temperature profiles for composite with particle concentration of: (a) 6.5 vol.%, (b) 11.3 vol.%, (c) 26.8 vol.%, (d) 35.9 vol.%.

Table 2
Thermal conductivity values for composites obtained from different methods.

Sample Particulate content (vol.%) Effective thermal conductivity of the composites (W/m K)
Rule of mixture model Maxwell’s model FEM model Experimental value
1 6.5 0.2831 0.336 0.300 0.291
2 11.3 0.2436 0.317 0.315 0.273
3 26.8 0.1678 0.254 0.270 0.242
4 35.9 0.1317 0.217 0.170 0.155

value with respect to the experimental ones. It leads to a con-

clusion that for a particulate filled composite of this kind the
FEM model can very well be used for predictive purpose in
determining the effective thermal conductivity for a wide range
of particle concentration.
Fig. 5 compares the results of FEM with those found from exper-
iments. The difference between the calculated values and the mea-
sured value of conductivity for any particular composite sample
may be attributed to the fact that some of the assumptions taken
for the FEM analysis are not real. The shape of PWD is assumed
to be spherical, while in actual practice they are irregular shaped.
Although the distribution of pine wood dust in the matrix body
is assumed to be in an arranged manner, it is actually dispersed
in the resin almost randomly. It is also interesting to note that
the incorporation of PWD results in reduction of thermal conduc-
tivity of epoxy resin and there by improves its thermal insulation
capability with addition of 6.5 vol.% of PWD, the thermal conduc-
tivity drops by about 19.8% and with addition of 35.9% of PWD
Fig. 4. Comparison of thermal conductivity values obtained from different the thermal conductivity drops by about 57.3% in neat epoxy is
methods. achieved.
 R. Nayak et al. / Computational Materials Science 48 (2010) 576–581 581

Table 3
Percentage errors with respected to the measured value.

Model Particulate content (vol.%) Percentage errors with respected to the measured value
Rule of mixture model (%) Maxwell’s model (%) FEM model (%)
1 6.5 2.79 13.3929 3.0000
2 11.3 12.06 13.8801 13.3333
3 26.8 44.21 4.7244 10.3704
4 35.9 17.69 28.5714 8.8235

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