Thermal conductivity of SWCNT nanocomposites determined using finite element methods

Abstract

This research focuses on the determination of thermal conductivity of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) composite materials using Finite Element Methods (FEM). The effects of SWNT array distribution on effective thermal conductivity of composites are investigated. The composite is analyzed at a microscopic scale by considering two fiber distribution patters: 1- a moderately aligned nano-array distribution, and 2- a random SWCNT nano-array distribution. A thermal conduction problem is solved in the composite domain to obtain the effective thermal conductivity in each case. A composite lamina with 12 percent SWCNT fiber volume fraction is investigated. ANSYS finite element software is used to perform the analysis. The results of FEM models are compared to thermal conductivities obtained using the weight-average formulations. Weight average formulations under-estimate the value of composite thermal conductivity. The effective thermal conductivity values obtained using the FEM models turned out to be much higher than the weight averaged results. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.