Development of thermal conductivity prediction system for composites

Abstract

For composites, it is possible to control their effective thermal conductivity through selecting the component materials and designing the structure. For this purpose, a computer system that can help a designer to find the optimum solution of materials and structure is necessary. In this work, we have developed a high-speed and light-weight thermal conductivity evaluation engine, basing on analytical solutions of effective thermal conductivity of composites. A package of calculation modules corresponding to the analytical solutions for different structure models is developed. As input data, the constitution of a composite is described by a file in XML data format. The engine analyzes the file, recognizes the structure model, and automatically selects a proper calculation module for the composite. The evaluation engine is connected to a materials database, which is used to stores and provides information of component materials. The calculation result of a designed composite can also be stored in the database for sharing and reusing. This system is expected to be used as an effective decision support tool for composites design.