Simulation and Characterization of Thermal Conductivity of Nano Silica Based Aerogel
Heydar Dehghanpour Kemalettin Yılmaz
AbstractIn recent years, a new era has occurred in the development of construction materials with the expansion of nanotechnology. As example, nowadays nano aerogels are used as heat and even sound insulation materials to protect energy in buildings. In this study, nano silica-based aerogels with different volumes of Porosity was investigated at different temperature differences (∆T) with the finite element (FE) method by using the ABAQUS program. The heat flux and consequently the thermal conductivity was decreased with increasing porosity volume in models. At the same time, with ∆T variation between 25 and 55 there was no significant difference in the thermal conductivity results. However, when porosity volume exceeds 95 a quickly decrease in thermal conductivity was determined, opposite to the real behavior. So that, comparing with other relevant studies, the optimum pore volume of the nano silica based aerogel was resulted in 95 percent, in other words when the density is about 110 kg / m3. The results obtained are compared with studies in the literature and the values are close.