ENHANCED THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF EPOXY MATRIX COMPOSITES FILLED WITH BORON NITRIDE PARTICLES

The present paper deals with the estimation of thermal conductivity of epoxy Composites embedded with boron nitride (BN) micro-fillers. These composites with BN content ranging from 0 to 11.3 vol. % have been prepared and the thermal conductivities of the samples are measured experimentally. A numerical simulation using finite element package ANSYS is used to explain heat transfer process within epoxy matrix filled with micro-BN and the effective thermal conductivity values obtained from this method are validated with experimental results and theoretical correlation. It is observed that for 11.3 vol% of micro-BN in epoxy matrix, the increase in thermal conductivity is about 27.82 % while for 30 vol% the increase in thermal conductivity is about 440 % which is reasonably higher compared to neat epoxy resin. The results show that the BN particles show a percolation behavior at 20 vol% at which a sudden jump in thermal conductivity is noticed.