Effective conductivity of dispersions: The effect of resistance at the particle surfaces

✍ Scribed by Yee C. Chiew; Eduardo D. Glandt

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1987
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 906 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2509(87)87018-5

✦ Synopsis

The effective thermal or electrical conductivity of a suspension of monodisperse spherical particles embedded in a matrix of different conductivity is computed for the case when there exists a finite resistance at the particle-matrix interface. The calculation is carried out to second order in the volume fraction 4 of the particle phase for a dispersion having the structure of equilibrium hard spheres. Both the first-order (Maxwell) and the second-order approximations are found to represent experimental data reasonably well for dispersions of low to moderate concentration. To first order in 4, the calculation of the conductivity of a dispersion with surface resistance is equivalent to the calculation of the conductivity of another dispersion with no surface resistance, but with a different particle conductivity. In the case of polydisperse systems, the effective conductivity is found to be sensitive to the particle size distribution.