Numerical and experimental analysis on anisotropic thermal conductivity of carding quartz fiber web based on the reconstruction model

In order to analyze the thermal and mechanical properties of the carding quartz fiber web and the needle-punched quartz fiber preform containing the carding quartz fiber web, we propose a ‘three-step’ method to establish a three-dimensional quartz carding fiber web model containing large slenderness ratio fibers. First, the thickness and areal density of the carding quartz fiber web were measured and statistical analysis of fiber length and orientation distribution was carried out, which provided data support for establishing the three-dimensional carding fiber web model. Based on the wide application of Python language in finite element software, then spatial layered fibers of the beam element were generated by running Python scripts in finite element software; second, the three-dimensional carding fiber web model of beam element was established through a deposition and compression process by the explicit method of the finite element software; finally, the three-dimensional carding fiber web model of the beam element was converted into the solid element model for heat transferring analysis by Python. The converted process is the reconstruction process. Furthermore, anisotropic heat transmission of the three-dimensional carding fiber web model that includes temperature distribution and heat flux distribution were analyzed. Meanwhile, anisotropic thermal conductivity of the three-dimensional carding fiber web model was predicted in finite element software. A hot-disk thermal analyzer was used to measure the anisotropic thermal conductivity of the three-dimensional carding quartz fiber web. Experimental anisotropic thermal conductivity showed an excellent agreement with anisotropic thermal conductivity predicted by the finite element method. Moreover, the method in this paper is not only suitable for any other fibrous materials with randomly distributed fibers and large slenderness ratio fibers, but also is more efficient and low cost to obtain detailed heat conductions and anisotropic thermal conductivity.