Aerogel particle filled epoxy was fabricated in this work by investigating the effect of resin viscosity on pore infiltration and density of resulting composites. Aerogel porous structure was successfully preserved by carefully selecting epoxy viscosity for mixing procedure. The effect of aerogel content and particle size was subsequently investigated on thermal conductivity and compressive properties of epoxy composites. The results showed that incorporating aerogel particles into the resin could lead to over 40% reduction in both density and thermal conductivity. However, there was a linear trade-off between compressive properties and thermal conductivity of silica aerogel/epoxy composites. A wide range of aerogel particle sizes was also studied and it was found that the size effect was dependent on the aerogel content.Overall, the results of the presented work allow conclusions to be drawn regarding the usefulness of delayed wet mixing technique and the impact of particle size and loading on aerogel filled resin composites.

This investigation evaluates thermal insulation performance of a typical shipping container with different insulation materials. A mathematical model developed from our previous work was used to analyse the effect of packaging characteristics on insulative performance. A number of materials were employed as a liner to insulate a typical cardboard box, and the effect of these materials on package insulative performance was evaluated through experimental tests and the transistent thermal model.The results showed that application of aluminium foil to the internal liner surface of polyethylene gave 46% increase in the package insulative performance compared with the original polyethylene-insulated packages. An improvement of 79% and 106% in insulative performance per unit liner thickness was obtained from packages insulated with a polyisocyanurate board and aerogel blanket compared with the polystyrene-insulated package. The results also indicated that temperature surrounding the package played a significant role in the maximum insulation time. Furthermore, an excellent agreement was obtained between the mathematical model and the experimental results across all packaging aspects studied in this work. K E Y W O R D S aerogel, insulation packaging design, packaging insulation performance, thermal insulation materials

A mathematical model has been developed in the present work to describe the temperature change in a typical insulated shipping container as a function of time. The model was created by combining steady state and transient models in a 2D geometry of a typical shipping container and was subsequently validated by an ice melt test and comparison of temperature change obtained from the model and experimental measurement. An excellent agreement was obtained between the computational model developed in this work and experimental results. In addition, a parametric study was also carried out to investigate various factors in controlling the insulation performance of the packaging. It was found that the model has capability of evaluating the effect of a wide range of packaging design parameters such as thermal conductivity, surface emissivity, packaging geometry, and sounding temperature.