Analytical and numerical investigation on effective thermal conductivity of polymer composites filled with conductive hollow particles

The thermal behavior of hollow conductive particles filled in epoxy resin has been investigated using 3D finite element computation. The effect of the filler concentrations associated with the particle/matrix interfacial resistance on the effective thermal conductivity of the composites was considered. The relationship between the out-of-plane effective thermal conductivity, the wall thickness of the hollow particles, and the ratio of the thermal conductivities of the filler to the matrix material were also taken into account. The numerical results show an increase of the effective thermal conductivity with increasing wall thickness of the hollow particles. However, for a large contact resistance and/or for a high effective thermal conductivity, it is shown that the contact resistance has a dominant influence on the effective thermal conductivity of the composites. The numerical results were also compared to some well-known analytical effective thermal conductivity models. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.