摘要
Heat dissipation from aircraft is important. Carbon fiber polymer–matrix structural composites have high in-plane thermal conductivity, but low through-thickness conductivity. A nanostructuring method involving carbon black at the interlaminar interface was developed to improve the through-thickness conductivity. Ethylene glycol monoethyl ether (EGME) was used for dispersing the carbon black and to partially dissolution of the epoxy resin on the fiber-epoxy prepreg surface. EGME evaporated from the prepreg surface prior to composite fabrication. The optimum carbon black content in EGME for attaining high through-thickness conductivity was 0.8 wt. % for both unidirectional and crossply configurations. Applying EGME without carbon black improved the conductivity by up to 36 % , but in the case with carbon black, the improvement was up to 210 % . For the same interlaminar interface modification (except for EGME with 1.2 wt. % carbon black), the conductivity and its fractional increase were higher for the crossply configuration than the corresponding unidirectional configuration. The through-thickness compressive modulus and the flexural modulus were increased by up to 14 % and 11 % , respectively by using EGME with carbon black. The average thickness of the interlaminar interface increased with increasing carbon black content, but it was decreased by the use of EGME alone.