Thermal characteristics of multilayer sandwich Nomex honeycomb core composite with heating elements for railways wall panels

The composite material has been widely used in vehicle interiors, particularly in applications such as the wall-side panels of railways. The sandwich honeycomb composite, which combines two composite skins with a metal honeycomb, is the preferred structure in aerospace and railway applications due to its rigidity at minimal weight. As a functional composite material that provides heat flux to passengers, a multilayer sandwich Nomex honeycomb core composite with heating elements has been developed. In this design, the heating element is inserted into the inner composite material as a heat generation component, producing heat transferred to the other side of the panel. The thermal and structural behaviors of the sandwich composite with heating elements are orthotropic and require careful assessment to understand the material characteristics of the developed composite parts. In this study, conduction heat transfer in the functional honeycomb composite is simulated using the Finite Element Method (FEM) and validated with experimental results. The study proposes three steps to solve the problem: determining the heat-transfer parameters, simplifying the Nomex honeycomb core, and conducting a full-scale heat-transfer simulation. This research aids operating systems in controlling the heat generator input to prevent dangerous conditions. The results indicate that the simulation trends closely align with the experimental results.