Natural fibers, derived from plants such as wood, hemp, straw and cotton, have been explored for the fabrication of porous structures for thermal insulation applications due to their widespread availability, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness. Understanding the fundamental heat transfer mechanisms within natural fiber-derived porous structures is crucial for both optimized geometric design and real-world insulation applications. Herein, we developed a theoretical framework considering geometric parameters, including pore size, fiber diameter and porosity (i.e., density), to examine the contribution of various heat transfer modes (i.e., conduction, convection, and radiation) on the effective thermal conductivity of porous structures derived from natural fibers. Our results indicate that thermal radiation is largely responsible for the rapid increase in effective thermal conductivity of the natural fiber-derived porous insulations in low-density regions (< 50 kg/m(3)) and that natural convection rarely occurs within these materials. The insulation materials derived from natural fibers with diameters in the micron range (5-50 mu m) can achieve their minimum thermal conductivity at an optimal density of 50-90 kg/m(3). Effective strategies to lower the effective thermal conductivity of natural fiber-derived porous materials include increasing porosity to curtail solid conduction, incorporating nanoscale pores by using nanosize fibers to diminish gaseous thermal conductivity. This research offers valuable insights into the heat transfer mechanisms in natural fiber-derived materials and should guide the structural design and optimization process toward developing super-thermal insulation materials derived from natural fibers.

气凝胶是一种纳米多孔超级隔热材料,其内部的传热过程涉及气相导热、固相导热、气固耦合传热及辐射传热.基于格子Boltzmann方法,演化了含有辐射源项的能量方程和辐射传输方程,建立了描述SiO2气凝胶复合材料内多模式多尺度耦合传热的统一格子Boltzmann模型,探究了SiC遮光剂粒径和掺杂量对气凝胶复合材料隔热性能的影响,获得了使得材料等效热导率最小的SiC遮光剂最优粒径和最佳掺杂量随温度的变化规律.

Charring composites can provide the most efficient thermal protection shield for the thermal protection system (TPS), which is essential for hypersonic reentry vehicles. It is of great importance to clarify the implication of different porosity configurations of charring composite on the bondline temperature. In the present study, a one-dimensional transient thermal model considering the pyrolysis without the surface recession is built and validated. Based on this model, the thermal protection performance of various porosity distribution design schemes is analyzed when keeping the total pore volume unchanged. The present results show that the scheme with the linear increasing porosity from the bondline to the heated surface can decrease the bondline temperature by 7.8 K and 15.8 K compared with the homogeneous scheme and the linear decreasing scheme, respectively. Further, a scheme with parabolic increasing distribution of porosity are evaluated. It is found that it can reduce the bondline temperature by an additional 2.9 K.