Hexagonal boron nitride (BN) is electrically insulating and has a high in‐plane thermal conductivity. However, it has a very low cross‐plane thermal conductivity which limits its application for efficient heat dissipation. Here, large BN pellets with a quasi‐isotropic thermal conductivity are produced from BN nanosheets using a spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. The BN pellets have the same thermal conductivity from both perpendicular and parallel directions to the pellet surface. The high quasi‐isotropic thermal conductivity of the bulk BN is attributed to a quasi‐isotropic structure formed during the SPS process in which the charged BN nanosheets form large sheets in all directions under two opposite forces of SPS compression and electric field. The pellet sintered at 2300 °C has a very high cross‐section thermal conductivity of 280 W m−1K−1(parallel to the SPS pressing direction) and exhibits superior heat dissipation performance due to more efficient heat transfer in the vertical direction.
Boron-Nitride Nanosheet-Based Thermal Barrier Coating for Micro-Combustor Performance Improvement
Abstract One of the major challenges in the development of micro-combustors is heat losses that result in flame quenching, and reduced combustion efficiency and performance. In this work, a novel thermal barrier coating (TBC) using hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets as building blocks was developed and applied to a Swiss roll micro-combustor for determining its heat losses with increased temperatures inside the combustor that contributes to improved performance. It was found that by using the h-BN TBC, the combustion temperature of the micro-combustor increased from 850 K to 970 K under the same thermal loading and operational conditions. This remarkable temperature increase using the BN TBC originated from its low cross-plane thermal conductivity of 0.4 W m−1 K−1to mitigate the heat loss from the micro-combustor plates. Such a low thermal conductivity in the h-BN TBC is attributed to its interfacial resistance between the nanosheets. The development of h-BN TBC provides an effective approach to improve thermal management for performance improvements of gas turbine engines, rocket engines, and all various kinds of micro-combustors.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1706777
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10334949
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Energy Resources Technology
- Volume:
- 144
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 0195-0738
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4052734
