Estimating effective thermal conductivity of two-phase materials

Abstract

In this paper, correlations are proposed to estimate the effective thermal conductivity of two-phase materials. For any α, Maxwell equation for 0.0 < c ⩽ 0.10 and phase inverted Maxwell for 0.9 ⩽ c ⩽ 1 are considered. For concentrations between 10% and 90%, and low α (<20), an equation based on the unit-cell approach (constant isotherms) is proposed. For α > 20, three correlations are proposed based on field solution approach which includes three α ranges viz. medium (20 ⩽ α ⩽ 100), high (100 ⩽ α ⩽ 1000) and very high (1000 < α). The predicted effective thermal conductivity of two-phase system is compared with well-established models. Comparison of the predicted values of the correlations with experimental results is also made. The predictions of effective thermal conductivity of two-phase materials match well with the experimental values.