CHEN Zhaofeng, LI Chengdong, CHEN Qing, XU Tengzhou, LI Binbin, WANG Lei
In recent years, the technologies of the thermal insulation in our country are developed in a large extent; accompanied with researches and production capacities of novel thermal insulation materials. The vacuum insulation panel (VIP) enjoys an excellent thermal resistance, about 10 times higher than that of conventional insulators, and is now the most advanced thermal insulation and preservation material in refrigeration, freezing, and heat preservation areas, widely used in fields like buildings, household appliances and aerospace. The core material is the skeleton of the VIPs; it determines the thermal insulation properties of the VIPs and provides a guarantee for the long service life of the VIPs. This paper discusses the types and the functions of the core material, and the application requirements of the VIP core material. The differences in the properties and characteristics among traditional thermal insulation materials are compared, including the particle insulation materials, the foam insulation materials, and the fibrous insulation materials. A novel core material composed of fibers and different- sized particles is proposed. This kind of core material enjoys excellent compressive and bending resistances, and low elastic resilience. In addition, it has the advantages of both the fibrous insulation material and the particle insulation material,,to overcome the shortcomings of easy-collapsibility in the particle material and easy-resilience in the fibrous material, and becomes an optimizing core material for the VIPs in building up the exterior wall thermal insulation.