Effective Thermal Conductivity Estimates Of Particulate Mixtures

Several theories have been advanced to estimate effective thermal conductivities of particulate mixtures, but most theories have focused on the dilute case. A method is proposed to estimate the effective thermal con-ductivity coefficient of mixtures of arbitrary concentration. Earlier the authors developed a theory to deter-mine the expected contact area between different species. This theory is employed to determine the Kapitza resistance of the heterogeneous mixture and forms part of an overall theory to estimate the effective thermal conductivity. Results are compared with other theoretical estimates and with experiments. I. INTRODUCTION. A variety of methods have been proposed to estimate macroscopic physical properties of heterogeneous me-dia. The analogies between five physical models: electrostatics, magnetostatics, thermal conduction, Euler fluids, and electrical conduction are widely appreciated. All the models describe a linear relationship be