Analytical Investigation of Heat Conduction in Graphite-Epoxy Cylindrical Composite Laminates

In this study, an exact analytical solution for two-dimensional steady-state conductive heat transfer in cylindrical composite laminates made of graphite-epoxy is presented. These laminates are in cylindrical shape and fibers have been winded around the cylinder in each layer. First, the appropriate Fourier transformation has been obtained using Sturm-Liouville theorem. Coefficients of series are achieved by solving a set of equations related to the thermal boundary conditions at inside/outside of the cylinder and temperature/heat flux continuity at the boundaries located between the layers. The solution of this set of equations is calculated using Thomas algorithm. In this article, the effect of fibers’ angle on temperature distribution of composite laminate is investigated under general boundary conditions. Here, we show that the temperature distribution for any composite laminates is between temperature distribution for laminates with fiber angles equal to the θ = 0 andθ = 90.