Equivalent Thermal Conductivity of Topology-Optimized Composite Structure for Three Typical Conductive Heat Transfer Models

Biwang Lu and Jing He ()
Additional contact information
Biwang Lu: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Baise University, Baise 533000, China
Jing He: School of Physics and Electronics, Nanning Normal University, Nanning 530100, China

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: Composite materials and structural optimization are important research topics in heat transfer enhancement. The current evaluation parameter for the conductive heat transfer capability of composites is effective thermal conductivity (ETC); however, this parameter has not been studied or analyzed for its applicability to different heat transfer models and composite structures. In addition, the optimized composite structures of a specific object will vary when different optimization methods and criteria are employed. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate a suitable method and parameter for evaluating the heat transfer capability of optimized composites under different heat transfer models. Therefore, this study analyzes and summarizes three typical conductive heat transfer models: surface-to-surface (S-to-S), volume-to-surface (V-to-S), and volume-to-volume (V-to-V) models. The equivalent thermal conductivity ( k eq ) is proposed to evaluate the conductive heat transfer capability of topology-optimized composite structures under the three models. A validated simulation method is used to obtain the key parameters for calculating k eq . The influences of the interfacial thermal resistance and size effect on k eq are considered. The results show that the composite structure optimized for the V-to-S and V-to-V models has a k eq value of only 79.4 W m −1 K −1 under the S-to-S model. However, the k eq values are 233.4 W m −1 K −1 and 240.3 W m −1 K −1 under the V-to-S and V-to-V models, respectively, which are approximately 41% greater than those of the in-parallel structure. It can be demonstrated that k eq is more suitable than the ETC for evaluating the V-to-S and V-to-V heat transfer capabilities of composite structures. The proposed k eq can serve as a characteristic parameter that is beneficial for heat transfer analysis and composite structural optimization.

Keywords: equivalent thermal conductivity; composite structure; conductive heat transfer model; topology optimization; heat transfer capability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/11/2558/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/11/2558/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:11:p:2558-:d:1401624

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().