Thermal Properties of Polymeric Composites Reinforced by Nanoceramic Materials

The present work focuses on the effect of reinforcing polymer with TiO2 and Al2O3 Nano-powders on its thermal properties since they have many important thermal applications. The effect of adding such Nano-powders with different particle percentages by weight (0.5%,1%, 1.5% and 2%) to the base material have been discussed. Different samples of the resulting Nano-composite materials have been prepared according to (ISO-220077) standard. Thermal properties of such samples have been evaluated by using hot disc technique and the results have been compared with that of pure epoxy. The results show that the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity increase with increasing weight fraction of reinforcing materials, and it becomes higher when the epoxy was reinforced by (Al2O3) rather than (TiO2) Nano powder. Also the results indicated that maximum values of thermal conductivity and diffusivity of the Nano-composite specimen reinforced by 2% (Al2O3) were (0.55W/m.K) & (0.45 mm2/Sec.) respectively. It has also shown that the heat capacity of the Nano-composite material decreases when the epoxy reinforced with Al2O3 and TiO2Nano-powders with different weight fractions.