California Maritime Academy

About: California Maritime Academy is a education organization based out in Vallejo, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Decision support system & Epoxy. The organization has 730 authors who have published 777 publications receiving 5864 citations.

Thermal Conductivity and Elastic Constants of PEDOT:PSS with High Electrical Conductivity

Abstract: Mixtures of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) and polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) have high electrical conductivity when cast from aqueous suspensions in combination with a high boiling-point cosolvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The electronic component of the thermal conductivity of these highly conducting polymers is of interest for evaluating their potential for thermoelectric cooling and power generation. We find, using time-domain thermore- flectance measurements of thermal conductivity along multiple directions of thick (>20 μm) drop-cast PEDOT films, that the thermal conductivity can be highly anisotropic (Λ∥ ≈ 1.0 W m −1 K −1 and Λ⊥ ≈ 0.3 W m −1 K −1 for the in-plane and through- plane directions, respectively) when the electrical conductivity in the in-plane direction is large (σ ≈ 500 S cm −1 ). We relate the increase in thermal conductivity to the estimated electronic component of the thermal conductivity using the Wiedemann−Franz law, and find that our data are consistent with conventional Sommerfeld value of the Lorenz number. We use measurements of the elastic constants (C11 ≈ 11 GPa and C44 ≈ 17 GPa) of spin-cast PEDOT films and through-plane thermal conductivity (Λ⊥ ≈ 0.3 W m −1 K −1 ) of drop-cast and spin-cast films to support our assumption that the phonon contribution to the thermal conductivity does not change significantly with DMSO composition.

Applications of Polymer Matrix Syntactic Foams

Abstract: A collection of applications of polymer matrix syntactic foams is presented in this article. Syntactic foams are lightweight porous composites that found their early applications in marine structures due to their naturally buoyant behavior and low moisture absorption. Their light weight has been beneficial in weight sensitive aerospace structures. Syntactic foams have pushed the performance boundaries for composites and have enabled the development of vehicles for traveling to the deepest parts of the ocean and to other planets. The high volume fraction of porosity in syntactic foams also enabled their applications in thermal insulation of pipelines in oil and gas industry. The possibility of tailoring the mechanical and thermal properties of syntactic foams through a combination of material selection, hollow particle volume fraction, and hollow particle wall thickness has helped in rapidly growing these applications. The low coefficient of thermal expansion and dimensional stability at high temperatures are now leading their use in electronic packaging, composite tooling, and thermoforming plug assists. Methods have been developed to tailor the mechanical and thermal properties of syntactic foams independent of each other over a wide range, which is a significant advantage over other traditional particulate and fibrous composites.