Heat dissipation - nylon vs steel

[RagenStienke]

I'm trying to get a better understanding of they heat dissipation properties of these two materials. Understanding that there are many different kinds of nylon and steel, what are some general rules of thumb?

Thx.

 

[mgb_phys]

Do you mean heat dissipation or conduction?
Are you interested in how a hot piece of nylon/steel on it's own cools or do you have a piece of nylon/steel between you and something hot?

 

[RagenStienke]

Dissipation. I realize nylon is a very poor conductor of heat relative to steel. What I'm trying to determine is once hot, how fast does nylon lose heat relative to steel.

For example, if instead of using steel belting in tires, if I used nylon, might that prolong the life of the tire. Forgetting other issues, I'm focusing singularly on the heat properties in tires that carry heavy loads and thus fail more often (trucks, mining equipment, etc).

Am I looking at this correctly?

 

[mgb_phys]

Then it's mostly a heat conduction question.
Where does the heat come from - the air or the rubber
Where does the heat go - presumably the outside of the rubber?

 

[RagenStienke]

Heat comes from both rubber (friction with ground) and air inside the tires (pressure). Heat goes to outside air.

 

[GT1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_diffusivity

 

[skeleton]

For example, if instead of using steel belting in tires, if I used nylon, might that prolong the life of the tire. Forgetting other issues, I'm focusing singularly on the heat properties in tires that carry heavy loads and thus fail more often (trucks, mining equipment, etc).

Am I looking at this correctly?

In this particular example of the tire, it is irrelevant what the thermal conductivity (and thus heat dissipation) is of the reinforcement fibers. This is because the fibers are encased in the rubber carcase, which itself is made of a poor conductor of heat. Further, the heat is not being generated substantially from the fibers. The bulk of the heat is generated from the flexing of the rubber carcase.

When a manufacturer wants a cooler tire, then they use a harder rubber compound. In contrast, racing tires are made of softer compounds to intentionally allow more heat generation - which leads to softening of the tire - which leads to increase road grip; aleit all at the expense of drastically reducing the life of a racing tire.

Note, addition of tread and its depth (which increases folded surface area) will marginally increase the rate of heat dissipation.

 

[RagenStienke]

Skeleton,

That is extremely helpful. Thank you.