Simulation of the heat transfer through fibrous insulation

The aim of the research is to produce a simulation of fibrous thermal insulation, so that the overall thermal conductivity of the insulation can be predicted. This allows the thermal conductivity of the insulation to be determined, and the optimum fibre layup can be investigated. In order to ensure the model is behaving correctly, it was compared to the thermal conductivity of a glass fibre blanket. This blanket was produced using the needle-punch technique, and so was made largely of in-plane randomly orientated fibres with regular out-of-plane fibres extending through multiple fibre layers and holding all the fibre layers together. The geometry was generated using MATLAB, before being converted into a 3D CAD model using ANSYS APDL, with the finite element analysis being carried out using ANSYS Workbench. The results of the simulation give an overall thermal conductivity that is very close to the experimentally measured thermal conductivity. As a result, the simulation can be considered to be accurate for at least some fibre orientations.