%0 Journal Article
%T An Investigation of the Radiative Heat Transfer through Nonwoven Fibrous Materials
%A Imad Qashou
%A Hooman Vahedi Tafreshi
%A Behnam Pourdeyhimi
%J Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics
%D 2009
%I INDA, Association of the Nonwovens Fabrics Industry
%X In this study, the surface-to-surface radiation model of the Fluent CFD code is used to investigate the response of a fibrous material to the radiative heat transfer. The unsteady state heat transfer equation is solved for the temperature and heat flux in and around the fibers that constitute a nonwoven fibrous material. For a fixed fiber diameter, it was shown that the higher the fabric¡¯s Solid Volume Fraction (SVF), the slower is the material¡¯s average temperature rise. Our simulation results also indicate that for a fixed SVF, fiber diameter has a negligible influence on the unsteady transfer of heat through the media. Of particular interest in this paper is the effect of material¡¯s thickness on the heat penetration. It is shown that the transient heat transfer exponentially decreases by increasing the material¡¯s thickness for fixed SVFs and fiber diameters. The above finding is also in agreement with our experimental study.
%U http://www.jeffjournal.org/papers/Volume4/4.1Qashou-A_Investigation_of_the_Radiative_Heat.pdf