EFFECTIVE THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF POROUS MEDIA WITH ROUGHENED SURFACES BY FRACTAL-MONTE CARLO SIMULATIONS

Abstract

In this paper, the Fractal-Monte Carlo has been employed to simulate the effective thermal conductivity of porous media with roughened surfaces. The proposed probability model for the effective thermal conductivity of porous media with roughened surfaces can be expressed as a function of the relative roughness, porosity, minimum and maximum diameter of pores, fractal dimensions, and random number. The proposed model is validated by a satisfying agreement of our Fractal-Monte Carlo simulations and the experimental data. In our Fractal-Monte Carlo model, there is no extra empirical constant and each parameter has clear physical meaning. Then, the effects of micro-structural parameters of porous media on the effective thermal conductivity of porous media with roughened surfaces have been analyzed in detail. It can be found that the effective thermal conductivity of porous media with roughened surfaces decreases with the increase of relative roughness and tortuosity fractal dimension. Our results demonstrate that the proposed Fractal-Monte Carlo model can be used to characterize other transport properties such as mass transfer of porous media.