ISSN Online: 2377-424X
ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-421-2
International Heat Transfer Conference 15
Development of a Thermal Measurement Technique for Detection of Localized Filler Distribution within a Polymer Composite
Sinopsis
Due to recent development of hand-held mobile devices and flexible display technology, large demand for
high thermal conductivity plastics is present. As a result, polymer composites having comparable thermal
conductivity to stainless steel at room temperature are commercially available nowadays. Usually, metal or
carbon fiber or particles are added to base polymers to enhance the thermal properties. However for polymer
composites having high filler concentration, problems such as anisotropic thermal conductivity and nonhomogeneity
of the material due to filler alignment and aggregation are present. In this paper, a thermal property
measurement method based on the 3-omega (3ω) is proposed for thermal analysis of polymer composites with
spatial resolution below 0.3 mm. Preliminary thermal conductivity measurement result of a commercial polymer
composite shows that the present method can be applicable to analyze the localized filler distribution with in a
polymer composite sample.