USING BEM TO PREDICT THE EFFECTIVE THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY FOR HETEROGENEOUS MATERIALS

Abstract

This work presents a study on the effective thermal conductivity in material with heterogeneous composition in two dimensions. The Boundary Elements Method (BEM) is used to solve the steady state potential equations. The sub regions technique was implemented in order to take into account the effects of these inclusions inside the domain. In the numerical implementation, the inclusions are randomly generated in a Representative Volume Element (RVE) domain. The Average Field Theory is used to predict the effective properties (macroscopic) of the material with heterogeneous composition. The material is characterized by a specified volume fraction as well as the inclusion’s size. The samples are composed of square domains with defined number of randomly distributed inclusions and submitted to a condition of unidirectional heat conduction. Each set of samples is analyzed several times in order to guarantee statistical stability of the result.