Determination of thermal conductivity of composites with dispersed spherical inclusions

Abstract

Abstract The existing shortcomings of the models for determining the thermal conductivity of composite materials with dispersed spherical inclusions raise the issue of creating more advanced calculation methods. This paper proposes a model for determining the thermal conductivity of composite materials, taking into account influence of thermal resistance at the material-inclusion boundary. The analysis of numerical and theoretical calculations showed that the analytical dependence is consistent with the results of numerical modelling for relatively small values of thermal conductivity of the filler and inclusion diameter. This paper considers several models that have been recently developed and that allow calculating thermal conductivity of such materials. They are compared with the model that takes into account influence of thermal resistance of the phase boundary. Applicability intervals of the considered model for various ratios of the thermal conductivity of inclusion material and matrix material are given.