Simulation of heat transfer in hollow-glass-bead-filled polypropylene composites by finite element method

A simulation of the heat-transfer process in hollow-glass-bead (HGB)-filled polymer composites was made by using a finite element method (FEM) with ANSYS software, to identify the effects of the content and size of the HGB on the effective thermal conductivity (k(eff)). The effective thermal conductivity of the polypropylene (PP)/HGB composites was estimated at temperatures varying from 25 to 30 degrees C. The results showed that the thermal insulation effect of HGB-filled PP composites was significant, the simulated k(eff) decreased linearly with increase of the volume fraction (phi(f)) of the fillers, and then reduced somewhat with increasing filler size. Furthermore, the simulated k(eff) by the three-dimensional (3D) model was higher than that by the two-dimensional (2D) model. Finally, the simulations were compared with the measured k(eff) from experiments. It was found that simulations were fairly close to the measured k(eff), and the simulations with the 3D model were relatively closer than those with the 2D model for these composites. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.