Heat conduction model based on percolation theory for thermal conductivity of composites with high volume fraction of filler in base matrix

Abstract

In this article, we propose a computational heat conduction model to estimate the thermal conductivity of composites with high volume fraction of filler particles distributed randomly in the base matrix. Most of the presently available models used for estimating the thermal conductivity of the composite materials fail after a certain volume fraction of the filler due to the effect of percolation i.e. the formation of ‘heat transfer paths’ formed by the filler particles within the composite. The proposed model accounts for this percolation effect and estimates the thermal conductivity of a composite material with Aluminium as the filler in the Epoxy matrix. The algorithm for the proposed model is developed using MATLAB program and is used to obtain the thermal conductivity of the composite by entering the specifications of the parent components of the composite. The proposed model is able to predict the thermal conductivity of composites of high volume fraction of filler over the temperature range of 50 K–300 K and the results obtained are in good agreement with the experimental data.