Low-temperature thermal insulation materials with high impact resistance made from feather-fibres

Abstract

Thermal insulation materials typically used in low-temperature applications such as pipelines for transporting liquid natural gas can become brittle and are therefore susceptible to impact damage. New feather-fibre biomaterials developed in this work have extremely low thermal conductivity but retain high impact resistance at low-temperatures. The experiments reported demonstrate the improved impact resistance of feather fibre biomaterials compared to foamed nitrile rubber. The microstructural characteristics of feather-fibre biomaterials that allow them to be used as impact resistant thermal insulation at low-temperatures are discussed.

Keywords

• Biomaterials
• LNG
• Thermal properties
• Low-temperatures
• Impact
• Feathers