Carbon fiber reinforced elastomeric thermal interface materials for spacecraft

Abstract Due to the high-heat flux issue caused by the increasing power consumption of electronic devices in spacecraft, there is an urgent need but still a significant challenge to develop high thermal conductivity elastomeric thermal interface materials (TIMs) for spacecraft. In this study, mesophase pitch-based carbon fibers (CFs) are added as fillers on the basis of conventional alumina/silicone rubber TIMs, and the CFs are oriented in the matrix by a strong magnetic field during the preparation process. Attributed to the phonon-transport highways composed of vertically-oriented CFs and the synergistic improvement based on CFs and alumina, the through-plane thermal conductivity of the final elastomeric composite with 20 vol% CFs is increased by nearly 14 times compared with the alumina/silicone rubber composite, and it also confirms to the vacuum outgassing performance standard for spacecraft. Moreover, with the help of a verification system, the actual heat transfer capability of the composite is evaluated through the ground test and on-orbit test, and the results suggest that it has a perfect interface heat transfer capability both on the ground and in space, which reveals that this composite can potentially be applied as elastomeric TIM for spacecraft thermal control.