Experimental and numerical analyses on the thermal conductive behaviors of carbon fiber/epoxy plain woven composites

The thermal conductive behaviors of carbon fiber/epoxy plain woven composites along in-plane and out-of-plane (thickness) directions were reported in this paper. The thermal conductivities of the plain woven composites were tested with a self-designed thermal chamber under different temperatures. The multi-scale finite element analyses (FEA) were used to investigate the thermal conductive behaviors of plain woven composites. From the comparisons of the thermal conductive behaviors between the plain woven composites and unidirectional (UD) lamina, the effect of the plain woven preform structure on the thermal conduction was further explained. It was found that the thermal conductivity along fiber axial direction is greater than that along its radial direction, and the thermal conductivities of plain woven composites fall in between those of 0° UD lamina (upper bound) and those of 90° UD lamina (lower bound). The temperature distributions and heat flux transferring pathways are mainly along the yarns' orientation directions. In addition, a simplified unit-cell model was developed to decompose the plain woven unit-cell into the combinations of several UD laminas. The experimental thermal conductivities showed a good agreement with those of FEA. The simplified unit-cell model manifests the feasibility for predicting the thermal conductivity of complex textile structure composites from the UD laminas.