A Presentation on

Measurement of the effective thermal

conductivity of insulation materials
reinforced with aluminium foil at low
temperatures.

By :- A. Kalyan Sarma
 Introduction
Currently, the thermal management of systems and
applications requires continuous research efforts to
develop more efficient and cost effective solutions.
Therefore, it is necessary to improve different
materials, including composite materials, for effective
thermal management.
The performance of these materials with varying filler
contents and the assessment of their thermal
behaviours under varying conditions (such as
temperature and pressure) have been investigated in
various studies.
 In this study, the effective thermal conductivity (ETC) of
porous insulation materials was determined based on
the analysis of various heat transfer mechanisms.

These mechanisms can occur by :-

(1) conduction through the solid or the gas, (2) gas
convection in pores due to air movement, and (3)
radiation between the solid surfaces.

In the literature, the effect of natural convection

through the pores is assumed to be small and can be
neglected.
 The experimental results reported by Hutter and
Komle indicate that in granular materials, radiation
heat transfer cannot be neglected under vacuum
conditions, even at room temperature.

Zhao et al. and Zhang et al. found that radiation heat

transfer and gas conduction through the insulation
were the dominant heat transfer mechanisms at
various temperatures and pressures.

Wu et al. found that the total thermal energy flux

slightly decreased with the increase of the fibre
emissivity within porous polymer materials.
 The use of reflective materials and their main historical
developments are summarised by Spinnler et al. and
Yuksel et al. :-

1. For multilayer thermal insulation materials, Spinnler et al.

observed that radiation screens generally reduce the ETC
of the stand-alone spacer. It was noted that the effect of
radiation screens was to decrease the ETC as the screen
emissivity decreased.

2. In addition, Yuksel et al. showed that the ETC can be

increased by adding reflective materials, such as
aluminium foil. Furthermore, Yuksel studied different
structures and operating conditions by using low
emissivity and conductive materials.
 Many studies have focused on the effect of factors, such as the
material content, thermal conductivities of the interior
structure, layering arrangement, moisture (evaporation or
condensation), reflectivity/emissivity of materials and thermal
mechanism issues on the ETC.
An experimental study of multilayer thermal insulations for low
temperature applications was determined by using a guarded
hot plate apparatus.
The ETC temperature relationship of the layered insulation
materials in the range 025 0C was obtained with a range of
temperature differences (5, 10, 15 0C).
The lowest thermal conductivity was achieved with an increase
of additional layers in the insulation materials. Consequently, a
combination of low-emissivity layers yields optimal reduction
of the ETC.
 Methods
These series layers were composed of insulation materials
reinforced with high reflectivity materials. Aluminium foil was
used as the reflectivity material between the insulation
materials. The glass wools were approximately 16.7 mm thick
and consisted of a series of binary and ternary layers. The
density and porosity of the glass wool is approximately 99.5
kg/m3 and 96.294 %.

The thickness of the aluminium foil was 0.1 mm. In addition,

the series layers of glass wool were reinforced and measured
with low reflectivity materials, such as stretch nylon and
white paper (81 g/m2).
The thickness of reinforced series-layered glass wool
materials was approximately 33.07 and 49.1 mm. The
densities of the binary and ternary samples reinforced are
approximately 102.85 kg/m3.
 In addition, the series layer of EPS was prepared as ternary
layers reinforced with aluminium foil, and its thickness was
approximately 87.5 mm. The density of EPS is approximately
9.97 kg/m3.
New models have been developed for predicting the ETC In most
cases, the models are based on conduction mechanisms.
In determination of the (SSHT) through the serial, 1-D layered
porous insulation materials, the ETC factor can be altered with
reflectively layers between sets of insulating materials.
This factor is governed by the high thermal conductivity and low
emissivity of the material component. Here, there was an effect
of radiation on the serial layers arranged by the aluminium foil.
The layers were very thin and emit and reflect radiation
diffusely.
This effect can be described by the radiation heat transfer
mechanism represented as radiation conductivity.
 For optically dense porous insulation materials, the
standard calculation method of the ETC can be
expressed in terms of the local radiation temperature
TR as :-

where the first term expressed by kC is the thermal

conductivity related to the solid and gas conduction,
and the second term is the radiation conductivity and
known as the Rosseland diffusion approximation.
 The first measurement system was the single-
specimen conductivity test tool -Meter EP500.
The measurement range of this apparatus was 0.005
1.8 W/m-K at the temperature differences of 5, 10,
and 15 0C.
The test apparatus designed was capable of measuring
on the temperature range from -10 to 40 0C and on the
room temperature range from 18 to 28 0C. Its accuracy
is < 2 % at room temperature.
These measurements were carried out for straight
materials of series layers in square cross sections of
50 x 50 cm .
Fig. 1 :-

a) A schematic of the tinplates covered by the ternary

insulation materials.
b) the structure of the ternary insulation materials reinforced
with aluminium foil.
 The second experimental system was constructed from
commercially available components, and it is used for
thermal conductivity measurements of insulation materials
at different temperatures. The ETC was evaluated from the
measured interior (water) and exterior temperatures
versus time.

For this measurement, a 5 L tinplate was covered by the

reinforced ternary glass wool insulation materials with
aluminium foil. A different tinplate was covered by the
unreinforced ternary glass wool materials. Then, an
antifreeze/water average mix of -6.5 0C was poured into
the tinplates.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
 Fig. 2 The variation of the effective thermal conductivity (ETC)
versus the temperature for a number of glass wool layers (binary,
ternary) at temperature difference of 10 0C
Fig. 3 The variation of the effective thermal conductivity versus the
temperatures for :-
a) the ternary glass wool layers (reinforced with
aluminium foil) in the temperature differences of 5, 10, and 15 0C
 b) the ternary EPS layers (reinforced with
aluminium foil) in the temperature differences of 5, 10, and 15 0C
 The results showed that there is a remarkable decrease (up to
66.14 %) in the ETC by reinforcing with materials, such as
aluminium foil.
Figures 2, 3 show that the measured ETC decreases with
decreasing temperature levels. As it can be seen in the case of
reinforcing with the aluminium foil, the ETC decrease was 34.349 %
for the ternary glass wool materials at 10 0C and a temperature
difference of 10 0C. This discrepancy at temperatures of 0 0C and
50C reached a magnitude of about 66.143 and 53.089 %.

Additionally, the average rate of change of magnitude observed in

the data was altered with the change in temperature difference.
The value of the ETC was decreased by 44.47 % for the 10 0C
condition with temperature differences of 5 and 15 0C. For a
temperature difference of 15 0C , this value was increased 20.43 %
at the same temperature.
 CONCLUSIONS

The effective thermal conductivity (ETC) of the samples of

glass wools and EPS reinforced with aluminium foil was
measured over a temperature range from 0 to 25 0C. with
temperature differences of 5, 10 and 15 0C . The results
showed that the ETC of the samples reinforced with the
aluminium foil decreased at the low temperatures.

Furthermore, the ETC decreased with the change in

temperature difference of 5 0C. These results show a strongly
decreasing thermal conductivity with an uncertainty of better
than 1 %, which is an unexpected and still unexplained
phenomenon according to the current physical theories.
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