Thermal conductivity and compressive properties of hollow glass microsphere filled epoxy-matrix composites

The density, thermal conductivity, and compressive properties of hollow glass microsphere (HGM)-filled epoxy composites were investigated in the present paper. The volume fraction of HGM was varied from 0 to 50vol.%. The results showed density, thermal conductivity, compressive modulus, and compressive strength of the composites decreased with the increase of HGM volume fraction, which indicated that the properties related above were mainly dependent on the content of HGM. To conveniently predict thermal conductivity in the investigated materials system, five effective thermal conductivity models were analyzed and compared with the experimental data. The Agari model was applied to predict thermal conductivity of HGM-filled epoxy composites, and the results indicated thermal conductivity and compressive properties of epoxy-matrix composites can be modified by changing the HGM volume fraction, this discover would make it become a promising engineering material in the related fields.