Gaseous Conductivity Study on Silica Aerogel and Its Composite Insulation Materials

This paper presented theoretical and experimental study on gaseous conductivity of silica aerogel and it’s composite insulation materials. The samples of silica aerogel, xonotlite-type calcium silicate, xonotlite-aerogel composite and ceramic fibre-aerogel composite insulation materials were prepared firstly. The gaseous conductivities of the prepared samples were measured from 0.045 Pa to atmospheric pressure with the transient hot-strip (THS) method. The gaseous conductivity expressions based on the kinetic theory were then compared with the experimental results. It is shown that both the gaseous conductivity of xonotlite-type calcium silicate and silica aerogel decreases significantly with the drop of pressure. The gaseous conductivity of xonotlite-type calcium silicate reaches to zero at about 100 Pa and the gaseous conductivity of silica aerogel reaches to zero at about 10⁴ Pa. The theoretical gaseous conductivity expressions match well with the experimental results of xonotlite-type calcium silicate and silica aerogel respectively, but do not match with the experimental results for the composite insulation materials. It indicates that the aerogel does not fill the two kinds of composite insulation materials entirely, and some micro level pores still exist in them.