Deformation Induced Degradation of Thermal Conductivity in Cracked Solids

Abstract

The present work studies the overall (effective) thermal conductivity in solid media with a variable microcrack density. For a solid undergoing continuous straining, the self-consistent model is used to describe the evolution of microcrack density in the strain history. While the model established by Budiansky and O'Connell is implemented for the degradation of the load-bearing capacity due to microcracks, the micromechanical model established by Tzou and Chen is used to relate the microcrack density to strains. Degradation of thermal conductivity is then obtained by the analytical result obtained by Tzou in the same self-consistent framework.