Investigation of Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Three-Dimensional Braided Composite Materials

This paper investigates the thermal and mechanical properties of a composite made from a combination of 2063-epoxy resin and three different braided carbon-fiber fabric reinforcements. These fibres consist of HTS carbon, HTS carbon braided with nickel coated carbon and HTS carbon braided with nickel coated copper, respectively. The composites were manufactured through resin transfer molding (RTM) route. The thermal diffusivity of carbon fibers composites was measured at different temperature by using a flash method. The transverse and planar thermal conductivities were determined by measuring the specific heat, density and thermal diffusivities, respectively. The current research highlights the influence of adding nickel coated carbon and nickel-plated copper wires on the braided composites. The evaluation shows that the HTS carbon braided manufactured with nickel-plated copper wires presents higher in-plane thermal conductivity (in direction parallel of the fibres) when comparing to HTS carbon and HTS carbon braided manufactured with nickel coated carbon. The thermal conductivity benefits of those composite were achieved at the expenses of lower mechanical properties of braided composites investigated.