Theoretical and experimental study of the thermal conductivity of nanoporous media

The nanoparticle thermal conductivity and nanoscale thermal contact resistance were investigated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to further understand nanoscale porous media thermal conductivity. Macroscale porous media thermal conductivity models were then revised for nanoporous media. The effective thermal conductivities of two packed beds with nanoscale nickel particles and a packed bed with microscale nickel particles were then measured using the Hot Disk. The measured results show that the nano/microscale porous media thermal conductivities were much less than the thermal conductivities of the solid particles. Comparison of the measured and calculated results shows that the revised combined parallel-series model and the revised Hsu-Cheng model can accurately predict the effective thermal conductivities of micro- and nanoparticle packed beds.