The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive overview of compressive creep of mullite refractories, which are a potential replacement for more traditional silica refractories in harsh oxy-fuel environments. Tests performed included corrosion resistance, microstructure analysis, dimensional stability, phase content, and thermal properties. A thermal analyzer was used to perform thermal conductivity testing on 10 commercially available mullite refractories as part of the analysis....
Composite carbon foams were prepared by mixing tannin-based resin with various graphite powders in an effort to improve the thermal conductivity relative to pristine carbon foams in order to use them as hosts for phase-change materials. It was found that using graphite powder with smaller particle sizes resulted in foams with a higher bulk density than those prepared with an equal amount of larger graphite particles, this increased density resulted ...
The goal of this masters thesis was to better understand the factors affecting the performance of geothermal heat pumps. A new method (Distributed Thermal Response Testing) of determining the ground thermal conductivity and thermal resistance around a borehole from filed data was tested. In order to test the accuracy of this method, it was compared against laboratory results and field tests. An instrument was used in a laboratory setting to ...
Autoclaved aerated concrete was studied because it has potential to be used in the design of energy-efficient buildings. Three different samples were tested, each with a unique density. Of particular interest to this work was the thermal conductivity of the samples, as this material would be used as a thermally insulating concrete. The thermal conductivities were measured at various percentages of moisture content, and it was found that increasing moisture ...
The authors have prepared highly porous, monolithic, carbon polymerised high internal phase emulsions (carboHIPEs) using tannins as the base material. This material was considered to be one of the most environmentally friendly carboHIPEs to have been prepared based on the fact that it is almost entirely composed of plant-derived chemicals. It was determined that in terms of porosity and mechanical properties, these carboHIPEs compared well with others that had been ...
