Thermal Properties of Buckypaper Enabled Polymer Composites

The heating process of the polymer composite reinforced by buckypaper was simulated with the finite element model. FLUENT was used to analyze how the thickness of buckypaper affect the temperature distribution, the changes of the temperature with time and the heating rate during heating. The maximum and average temperature of the composites decrease when the thickness of the buckypaper increase, whereas the minimum temperature on the samples have the opposite trend. The heating rate of the average temperature of the composites reinforced by the buckypaper with the thickness of 1.2 mm is faster than those of 0.4 mm and 0.8 mm. The temperature distribution of the polymer composites reinforced by the buckypaper is more uniform as the thickness of the buckypaper increase.