The electrical, thermal and mechanical properties of functionally graded materials vary with microstructure and composition. Consequently it is very important to know quantitatively the properties of composites for the design of functionally graded materials. However, few methods of quantitative and theoretical evaluation for material properties on wide compositional range have been established. In this research, a method that estimates the material properties of composites directly from their microstructure assisted with finite element analysis was investigated. As an example of the estimation of material properties, the thermal conductivity of Mo fiber-Cu matrix composites has been evaluated. Calculated results of thermal conductivity are well in agreement with the experimental data measured by using a laser flash apparatus and the smallest deviation is 1.9%. The finite element analysis using a metallographic model is a very accurate method for estimation of composite properties.
The aim of this study is to simulate thermal properties of Bensmim clay-wool composite through using microstructure based finite element modeling. These materials have been chosen due to their low cost and local availability. Cutting edge software tools that implement finite element methods will be used in order to first generate the 3D microstructure of the composites and then simulate the thermal properties as a second step. A validation of results is then performed through comparison with previous experimental studies in literature. The simulated thermal conductivity of the clay wool composite is 0.92 W/m-K which is close to the experimental value of 0.89 W/m-K. This study shows that microstructure based modeling of thermal properties of composites is a reliable way to explore new designs and get high fidelity measures of thermal conductivity.
Berzelius failed to make use of Faraday's electrochemical laws in his laborious determination of equivalent weights.