A cotton waste reinforced composite for automotive applications: development and thermal characterization

Fibre-reinforced composites are largely used in automobiles and building materials in various forms. Thermal insulation and acoustic characteristics are being mainly considered in building construction and automotive applications to meet overall comfort conditions as well as fulfil energy efficiency requirements. It is critical to look for new and sustainable approaches to increasing the thermal characteristics of the composites. Integration of various wastes is one of the most sustainable and efficient methods for increasing the thermal characteristics of composites. The present work is aimed to investigate the thermal insulation performance of cotton waste-reinforced composites using both epoxy and modified epoxy using the C-THERM thermal conductivity analyzer according to ASTM C518 standards. A computational model of randomly dispersed epoxy matrix interphase with cotton fibers is developed and validated with experimental results. It was observed that the thermal conductivity is higher when the combination of 40% flake cotton waste and 60% matrix material is used, both for epoxy and modified epoxy. The thermal conductivity for epoxy composites is 0.5715 W/mK, while for modified epoxy composites it is 0.4935 W/mK. The results indicate that modified epoxy composites exhibit better thermal insulation properties, as they have lower thermal conductivity values compared to epoxy composites. The modified epoxy composite is considered the best for thermal insulation, can be utilised in various automotive applications, such as partitioning panels, automotive panels, brake pads, and similar applications.

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