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Experimental-modeling approach for predicting radiation and conduction heat transfer through a uniform, highly-charring foam

20th Annual Conference on Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials 2009

Erickson, Kenneth L.; Celina, Mathias C.; Hogan, Roy E.; Nicolette, Vernon F.; Aubert, James H.

Polymer foam encapsulants provide mechanical, electrical, and thermal isolation in engineered systems. In fire environments, foams, such as polyurethanes and epoxies, can liquefy and flow during thermal decomposition, and evolved gases can cause pressurization and failure of sealed containers. In systems safety and hazard analyses, heat transfer and thermo-mechanical response in systems involving coupled foam decomposition, liquefaction, flow, and pressurization can be difficult to predict using numerical models. This is particularly true when liquefaction and flow create inhomogeneous "participating media" that behave inconsistently and significantly impact radiant heat transfer to encapsulated objects. To mitigate modeling issues resulting from foam liquefaction and flow, a hybrid polyurethane cyanate ester foam was developed that has mechanical properties similar to currently used polyurethane foams. The hybrid foam behaves predictably, does not liquefy, and forms approximately 50 percent by weight uniform char during decomposition in nitrogen. The char forms predictably and is a relatively uniform "participating medium." Experimental and modeling approaches were developed to predict radiation and conduction heat transfer to encapsulated objects before, during, and after foam decomposition. Model parameters were evaluated from independent small-scale experiments. Largerscale radiant heat transfer experiments involving encapsulated objects were done to provide data for model evaluation. Model predictions were within the variation in experimental results for the major portion of the experiments. © (2009) by BCC Research All rights reserved.

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Hybrid polyurethane cyanate ester foam for fire environments

Conference Proceedings - Fire and Materials 2009, 11th International Conference and Exhibition

Erickson, Kenneth L.; Celina, Mathias C.; Nicolette, Vernon F.; Hogan, Roy E.; Aubert, James H.

Polymer foams are used as encapsulants to provide mechanical, electrical, and thermal isolation for engineered systems. In fire environments, the incident heat flux to a system or structure can cause foams to decompose. Commonly used foams, such as polyurethanes, often liquefy and flow during decomposition, and evolved gases can cause pressurization and ultimately failure of sealed containers. In systems safety and hazard analyses, numerical models are used to predict heat transfer to encapsulated objects or through structures. The thermo-mechanical response of systems involving coupled foam decomposition, liquefaction, and flow can be difficult to predict. Predicting pressurization of sealed systems is particularly challenging. To mitigate the issues caused by liquefaction and flow, hybrid polyurethane cyanate ester foams have been developed that have good adhesion and mechanical properties similar to currently used polyurethane and epoxy foams. The hybrid foam decomposes predictably during decomposition. It forms approximately 50 percent by weight char during decomposition in nitrogen. The foam does not liquefy. The charring nature of the hybrid foam has several advantages with respect to modeling heat transfer and pressurization. Those advantages are illustrated by results from recent radiant heat transfer experiments involving encapsulated objects, as well as results from numerical simulations of those experiments.

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Development of a removable conformal coating through the synthetic incorporation of Diels-Alder thermally reversible adducts into an epoxy resin

ACS Symposium Series

Aubert, James H.; Tallant, David T.; Sawyer, P.S.; Garcia, Manuel J.

An epoxy-based conformal coating with a very low modulus has been developed for the environmental protection of electronic devices and for stress relief of those devices. The coating was designed to be removable by incorporating thermally-reversible Diels-Alder (D-A) adducts into the epoxy resin utilized in the formulation. The removability of the coating allows us to recover expensive components during development, to rebuild during production, to upgrade the components during their lifetime, to perform surveillance after deployment, and it aids in dismantlement of the components after their lifetime. The removability is the unique feature of this coating and was characterized by modulus versus temperature measurements, dissolution experiments, viscosity quench experiments, and FTIR. Both the viscosity quench experiments and the FTIR measurements allowed us to estimate the equilibrium constant of the D-A adducts in a temperature range from room temperature to 90 °C. © 2007 American Chemical Society.

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Results 1–25 of 33
Results 1–25 of 33