Abstract: The aim of the study is to do comparative study of insulation materials coated with aerogel against other available insulation materials and also test the efficacy of the custom built instrument. 50:50 ratio compositions of six polyester/polyethylene non-woven fabrics treated with aerogel were used as samples. An instrument was fabricated to measure the steady-state thermo physical properties (thermal insulation properties) at sub zero temperatures. The results from the instrument were correlated with the results from alambeta and thermal conductivity analyzer. Experimental data correlated well to theoretically calculated data. The results were statistically analyzed and showed that compared to other fabrics, temperatures did not have much effect on the thermal conductivity of aerogel treated nonwoven fabrics. The aerogel-based fabric samples were found to have considerably high thermal resistance even at extreme temperatures. Differences in thermal behavior of aerogel treated samples were due to variation in thickness. The custom built instruments were found to be effective for measuring the heat transport properties of fabrics. The conclusions provided insight in fabricating new custom equipments and exploring alternative techniques for thermal measurements.
Keywords: Thermal insulation, Thermal measurement, Heat transfer, Aerogel