Aligned structures of mesogenic motifs in epoxy resin and their thermal conductivities.The epoxy-based crosslinked polymer with the mesogenic group has been studied as a candidate resin material with high thermal conductivity due to the ordered structure of the mesogenic groups.  In this study, we conducted all atomic molecular dynamics simulations with iterative crosslinking procedures on various epoxy resins with mesogenic motifs to investigate the effect of molecular alignment on thermal conductivity.  The thermal conductivities of resins were higher than those of conventional polymers due to the alignment of aromatic groups, but no distinct correlation with the ARDF was found.  The alkyl chains introduced in the epoxy monomers induced more stable stacking of aromatic groups, but thermal conductivity was lowered as they inhibited phonon transfer on the microscopic scale. 
THERM