Experimental and modeling study of the thermal conductivity of SiC_p/Al composites with bimodal size distribution

The thermal conductivity of SiC_p/Al composites with high volume fractions of 46 to 68% has been investigated. The composites were fabricated by pressureless infiltrating liquid aluminum into SiC preforms with monomodal and bimodal size distributions. The density measurement indicates that a small amount of pores is presented for the composites approaching their maximum volume fractions. An analytical model with an explicit expression is proposed for describing the thermal conductive behavior of the composites with multimodal-reinforced mixtures in terms of an effective medium approach taking into account the porosity effect. Predictions of the developed effective medium expression reveal good correspondence with the experimental results, and explore how each of the considered factors (i.e., particle size ratio, volume fraction ratio, and porosity) can have a significant effect on the thermal conductivity of the composites with bimodal mixtures.