2003 Volume 44 Issue 4 Pages 629-632
For composites, it is possible to control their effective thermal conductivity through selecting the component materials and designing the structure. For this purpose, a computer system that can help a designer to find the optimum solution of materials and structure is necessary. In this work, we have developed a high-speed and light-weight thermal conductivity evaluation engine, basing on analytical solutions of effective thermal conductivity of composites. A package of calculation modules corresponding to the analytical solutions for different structure models is developed. As input data, the constitution of a composite is described by a file in XML data format. The engine analyzes the file, recognizes the structure model, and automatically selects a proper calculation module for the composite. The evaluation engine is connected to a materials database, which is used to stores and provides information of component materials. The calculation result of a designed composite can also be stored in the database for sharing and reusing. This system is expected to be used as an effective decision support tool for composites design.