THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF CARBON NANOTUBE/NATURAL RUBBER COMPOSITE FROM MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATIONS

Y He and YZ Tang, JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL & COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, 12, 1350011 (2013).

DOI: 10.1142/S0219633613500119

Classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are employed to study the thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube/natural rubber (CNT/NR) composite. An aligned CNT/NR system is constructed by atomic potential function and periodic boundary condition and the anisotropic thermal conductivity is predicted in three main directions. The highest thermal conductivity of 80 W/(mK) is predicted along the axial direction of CNT. However, the transverse thermal conductivity perpendicular to the CNT axis is only about 0.6 W/(mK). For obtaining thermal conductivity of randomly oriented CNT/NR composite, an isotropic algorithm is provided from thermal resistance analysis method and results indicate the thermal conductivity improvement of randomly oriented CNT/NR composite is negligible. It is deduced therefore aligning CNTs in NR matrix can be a promising method in thermal management of CNT/NR composite.

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