Review and Evaluation of Effective Thermal Conductivity Model for Solid-solid Binary Composite

Effective thermal conductivity (ETC) is an important characteristic parameter which represents the heat transfer ability of the composite and is a function of the thermal conductivity of the continuous phase k_c, the conductivity of the dispersed phase k_d, the volume fraction of dispersed phase ø, the shape and arrangement of dispersed phase, etc. Therefore, the prediction of ETC is a very complicated process. Even with the great number of models available, the uncertainty in predicting the ETC of the composite system can still be very high. Hence the screen of ETC models with better predicting results should be done according to different applications. First, the review of widely applicable ETC prediction methods for solid-solid binary composite system with granular dispersed phase was presented, including existing empirical or theoretical models, the minimum thermal resistance theory, the thermal resistance network method, the numerical method, the asymptotic homogenization method and the percolation method. Then, based on the experimental and numerical ETC results of solid-solid binary composite system, the comprehensive evaluation of ETC empirical or theoretical models was shown. Finally, the ETC models with better predicting results in different application realms were proposed.