Effective Thermal Conductivity of Polymer Composites Using Local Fractal Techniques

The model developed by Springer and Tsai is extended using non-linear volume fraction in place of physical porosity for the effective thermal conductivity of composite materials with the help of local fractal techniques. The expression for non-linear volume fraction is obtained using data available in the literature. Present model is constructed in terms of fiber volume fraction, the fiber-matrix thermal conductivity ratio and the local fractal dimensions. The effective thermal conductivity ratio is evaluated using the model with the approximation of the fractal dimensions. These fractal dimensions [ P d and T d ] are considered to be equal in the absence of information about the arrangement of fibers in the composites. The technique of local fractal dimensions is used to reduce the geometric complexity of the fiber arrangements. Better agreement of predicted effective thermal conductivity values with experimental results is obtained. A comparison with other models is also done and found that our model predict the values of effective thermal conductivity quite well. KeywordsEffective thermal conductivity, local fractal dimension, correction term, composite materials