Effect of Continuous-distribution Inter-phase on the Thermal Conductivity of SiCp/Al Composites by Numerical Simulation Method

Thermal conductivity of SiC particles-reinforced Al matrix (SiC p /Al) composites was simulated by finite element method (FEM), in which the models of SiC particles coated with inter-phase in the aluminum matrix was established.The effects of inter-phase types and thickness on the thermal conductivity of composites were investigated.The results show that, when the inter-phase combines ideally with SiC and Al which distributes continuously on the surface of SiC p , the thermal conductivity of composites inter-phase acts like a role of iner-layer.With increase of thermal conductivity of inter-layer, the thermal conductivity of the composites increases quickly at first and slowly afferwards.The variation of thermal conductivity of the composites depends on the ratio of inter-layer thickness (t) to the SiC p diameter (a).When the t/a value is very small or very large, the variation of the thermal conductivity is very small, while t/a is small, the variation of thermal conductivity of the composites is related to thermal conductivity of the inter-layer.