Heat conduction and porosity correction for diverse two-phase systems

Abstract

Some experimental results show the existence of a correction term for the calculation of effective thermal conductivity of dissimilar two-phase materials. Because of this, a correction for porosity has been suggested in a theoretical model initially developed for two-phase systems. A general expression for porosity correction has been derived empirically for diverse two-phase materials from experimental results reported in the literature. It is found that the correction term is dependent on the ratio of thermal conductivities of the constituents and the porosity of a two-phase system. The theoretical expression so obtained predicts values of effective thermal conductivity that are quite close to the experimental results.