Prediction of effective through-thickness thermal conductivity of woven fabric reinforced composites with embedded particles

A detailed three dimensional finite element model is used to predict the through-thickness thermal conductivity of a composite consisting of a woven fabric and matrix and compared with existing analytical two component models. It is found that Pilling’s constitutive model for two phase system agrees well with the numerical predictions. Then uniformly or randomly distributed conductive particles are introduced in the matrix and the effective thermal conductivity of this three-phase system is evaluated numerically. A unified hybrid constitutive model is proposed for the through-thickness thermal conductivity prediction for the particle embedded woven fabric system, incorporating a combination of generalized rule of mixtures and Pilling model to address a wide range of particle volumes and particle and fiber thermal conductivities. The proposed model can be used as a simple guideline to estimate the through-thickness thermal conductivity of such three component composite structures with woven fabrics, particles and matrices.