A Heuristic Approach to the Determination of the Effective Thermal Conductivity Coefficients of Biperiodic Composite Media

Abstract

A heuristic approach to determining the effective thermal conductivity coefficients of unidirectionally reinforced biperiodic composite media is suggested allowing one to substantially refine the calculated values of the effective coefficients of transverse thermal conductivity of the indicated compositions by using the simplest partitioning of a periodicity cell into thin layers (subelements) with subsequent application of the simplest formulas of averaging by simple and inverse mixture rules. A comparison of the calculated values of these coefficients with familiar experimental data is made. The good agreement of the prediction with experiment allows an assumption that the method developed can be used for practical calculations of the thermophysical characteristics of fibrous media with biperiodic structure. At the present time the accuracy of more complex structural models of the thermal conductivity of unidirectionally reinforced composites lacks a strict experimental justification.