Cryogenics 49 (2009) 735–737

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Cryogenics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cryogenics

Technical Note

Thermal conductivity of Kevlar 49 between 7 and 290 K

G. Ventura a,b, V. Martelli a,c,*
a
INFN, Section of Florence, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
b
Department of Physics, University of Florence, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
c
LENS, University of Florence, Via Nello Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: We measured the thermal conductivity of a Kevlar 49 in the 7–290 K temperature range. With a maxi-
Received 27 April 2009 mum error of 4%, our data are fitted by the simple formula: k ¼ 5:03  5:07eð0:00487Þ W=mK Kevlar 49
Received in revised form 31 July 2009 is a candidate material for the supports of CUORE experiment.
Accepted 1 August 2009
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Polymers
Thermal conductivity
Low temperature

1. Introduction ity of the material up to room temperature is important. The low

Kevlar (Polyparaphenylene terephthalamide) fibres are widely
used in cryogenics because of their low thermal conductivity and
high values both of tensile strength and Young modulus [1].
They are usually employed as organic-matrix reinforcement in
advanced-fibre composites of low specific weight and high
mechanical stiffness [2,3], or in strands, to make strong support
systems with a low parasitic heat leak [4,5]. Kevlar cords show a
stiffness to thermal conductivity ratio about 10 times greater than
that of stainless steel cables [6]: for this reason, there are many
experiments in which the former have been used at T < 1 K, in or-
der to achieve a given thermal insulation and mechanical stiffness
[7–11].
Kevlar 49 is a candidate for the suspensions of CUORE experi-
ment [12]. The CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for
Rare Events) experiment uses a large array of detectors for the
search of bb  ð0mÞ decay. Approximately 5  103 kg of lead shield-
ing must be cooled to below 1 K and a mass of 1:5  103 kg must be
cooled to 10 mK. Several tie-rods or straps will be used to support
the different parts of the experiment. One end of each support is at
low temperature (10 mK for the detector frame, 50 mK for the
coldest radiation shield and lead shield, 700 mK for the radiation
shield linked to the refrigerator still) with the other end usually
at room temperature. Hence, knowledge of the thermal conductiv-
* Corresponding author. Address: INFN, Section of Florence, Via G. Sansone 1,
50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy. Tel.: +39 055 457 2005; fax: +39 055 457
2122.
E-mail addresses: martelliv@fi.infn.it, valentinamartelli83@hotmail.com
(V. Martelli).
temperature conductivity of two other candidate materials
(Ti6Al4V alloy and the 316LN stainless steel) is reported in Ref.
[13]. Thermal conductivity of Kevlar 49 is known from 0.1 K to
100 K: Ventura and Martelli carried out measurements in the
0.1–3.2 K temperature range [7]. Poulaert et al. [14] measured
the thermal conductivity of Kevlar 49 in the 4–100 K range. Our
measurements extend thermal conductivity data for Kevlar 49 up
to room temperature.
It is worth noting that, because of an original misprint in the
Kevlar technical guide [15], the exotic value kKev ¼ 0:04 W=mK is
often reported for the room temperature thermal conductivity of
Kevlar 49 [16]. This value is very close to that of air,
kAir ðSTPÞ ¼ 0:045 Wm1 K1 .
2. Experimental set-up and procedure
The experimental set-up consisted of a copper frame which was
bolted to the the low temperature stage of a pulse tube refrigera-
tor. The pressure in the vacuum vessel was maintained at a value
of about 104 Pa.
The type of set up used in this experiment was originally pro-
posed by Ventura et al. [17] and adopted by Wikus et al. [18] for
measurement of the low temperature thermal conductivity of Zy-
lon. We employed the same basic set up used in the measurement
of Kevlar 49 in the 0.1–3.2 K temperature range [7].
The sample, a Kevlar 49 strap, 1 m long, was mounted in the
following way: it was wound around a rectangular copper frame
A as depicted in Fig. 1. We got a parallel array of 15 closely spaced
Kevlar straps, to form two optically dense curtains; this solution is

0011-2275/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cryogenics.2009.08.001
736 G. Ventura, V. Martelli / Cryogenics 49 (2009) 735–737

one thermal run between 4.2 and 300 K The heaters H1 was a
smd resistor; a wire NiCr resistor H2, not shown in Fig. 1, was
mounted on B2.
Electrical connections with the heater (thermometer) were
made of 50(30) lm, 50 cm long manganine wires (not shown in
Fig. 1). The frame sustaining the sample was fixed onto a copper
platform whose temperature T 1 can be set by means of the heater
H2. A gold-plated copper thermal shield enclosed the sample and
an outer gold-plated copper thermal shield enclosed the experi-
ment. Thermal conductivity was measured by a steady state tech-
nique. A power P e was supplied to H1 in order to create a
temperature gradient DT ¼ T 2  T 1  cT 1 (c  3% at the lowest
temperature and c  1% at room temperature) along the sample.
The thermal conductivity at a temperature T was evaluated from:

Pe
kðTÞ ¼ ð1Þ
g DT
ðT 1 þ T 2 Þ
T¼ ð2Þ
2
The correction on g due to the thermal contraction was neglected.

3. Results and discussion of the experimental method

Data for the thermal conductivity of Kevlar 49 are reported in

Fig. 2 together with data of Refs. [7,14]. The thermal conductivity
of Torlon [19] us also shown by comparison.
It can be noted that our data match well very low temperature
data [7] and confirm Poulaert et al.’s data in the intermediate
range. A simple fit, without any physical implication, can be pro-
posed for our data in the 7–290 K temperature range:
Fig. 1. Experimental set-up: A = copper frame; B1 and B2 ¼ copper slabs; C = folded
copper strip; H1 ¼ NiCr heater; R and R1 ¼ Cernox calibrated thermometers. k ¼ 5:03  5:07eð0:00487Þ W=mK ð3Þ
Fig. 3 shows the deviation ðk  kfit Þ=k of the fit (3) from the
experimental points.
Let us now consider the power budget of our experiment: Table
important to lower the power radiated from the sample. The ends
1 shows a comparison at three different temperatures among:
of the sample are in thermal contact with the heat sink. Note that
in Fig. 1 the straps are shown as separated for sake of clarity. In or-
 the electrical power Pe delivered to the warmer end of the
der to assure good thermal contact between the Kevlar sample and
sample;
the heat sink, two 1-mm-thick copper slabs (B1 and B2), held in
 the power PM shunted by the eight manganine wires;
place by screws, squeezed the cords against the frame. The trans-
 the power PR radiated by the sample toward the shield;
verse thermal contraction of the fibre between the slabs and the
 the true power P K crossing the sample.
frame was compensated for by using brass screws and 3 mm thick
tungsten washers (on cooling from room temperature to 4 K, ara-
mid fibres contract in the transverse direction of about 1.5%, and
expand axially of 0:1% [1]).
A 1 mm thick folded copper strip, C, was placed along the sam-
ple (at the middle of the sample in Fig. 1), in contact with each Kev-
lar strap (see Fig. 1 for details). In order to ensure thermal contact
between the copper strip and Kevlar, a nylon thread bound the
strip to the strap. All the copper parts of the set up were gold-
plated.
With this arrangement, we obtained a final array of 15 Kevlar
straps (length 6 cm) between B1 and B2. The geometrical factor
resulted g ¼ nA=L ¼ ð6:9  0:2Þ  102 cm when the copper strip
C was in the middle. Aðð0:694  0:007Þ  102 cm2 Þ was the effec-
tive section of one strap, L effective length between B1 an
B2; n ¼ 30. The effective section of one strap was evaluated by
accurately weighing 50 m of strap and from the knowledge of kev-
lar density q ¼ 1:44 g=cm3 .
Note that the geometrical factor g which depends on the posi-
tion of the strip. We put the copper strip in the middle. Two cali-
brated CERNOX thermometers R and R1 measured the
temperatures of C and B2 (see Fig. 1). They were ‘‘copied” from a Fig. 2. Thermal conductivity of Kevlar 49. Thermal conductivity of Kevlar 49
secondary calibrated thermometer (courtesy of Air Liquide) in compared with thermal conductivity of Torlon [19].
 G. Ventura, V. Martelli / Cryogenics 49 (2009) 735–737 737

3. considering the sample at its mean temperature

T ¼ ðT 2 þ T 1 Þ=2.

We can see from Table 1 that the power shunted by the manga-
nine wires is negligible. Instead the power radiated by the sample
can be as high as 8% (at 290 K) of the electric power Pe. Data re-
ported in Fig. 2 have been corrected for the power shunted by radi-
ative effect.

4. Conclusion

Kevlar 49 is a candidate material for the suspensions of CUORE

experiment. We have measured the thermal conductivity of Kevlar
49 in the 7–290 K temperature range. Our data match well existing
data in the 0.1–3.2 K [7] and 5–100 K [14] ranges.
A very simple fit, see Eq. (3), representing our data with a max-
imum error of 4% is proposed in the 7–290 K temperature range.

Fig. 3. Deviation of the Eq. (3) from the experimental points. References

[1] Reed RP, Golda M. Cryogenics 1994;34:909.

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by the sample toward the shield and the power crossing the sample P K . [5] Portman FS et al. Nucl Instr and Meth A 2000;444:220.
[6] Masi S et al. Cryogenics 1999;39:217.
T(K) P e ðWÞ P M ðWÞ P r ðWÞ P K ðWÞ [7] Ventura G, Martelli V. Very low temperature thermal conductivity of Kevlar 49.
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1:8  10 9
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for radiation between the Kevlar wires and the first thermal shield [15] <http://www.scribd.com/doc/954989/KEVLAR-Technical-Guide>.
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2. assuming emissivity T ¼ 0:5 for Kevlar 49 and an emissivity
s ¼ 0:03 [20] for the gold-plated copper shield;