Thermal conductivity of porous copper manufactured by the lost carbonate sintering process

This article describes an experimental investigation on the thermal conductivity of open-celled porous copper manufactured by the Lost Carbonate Sintering process. The thermal conductivity was either measured directly using Corsan's method or calculated from electrical conductivity values using the Wiedemann-Franz law. The relationship between thermal conductivity and relative density followed the power law, with the exponents being 2.05 for the former and 2.96 for the latter method. The thermal conductivity measured by Corsan's method was higher than that calculated from electrical conductivity, mainly because the sintering defects in the cell walls made contributions to thermal conduction but not to electrical conduction. The pore size had no significant effect on the thermal conductivity.