Thermal conductivity of composite material with coated inclusions: Applications to tetragonal array of spheroids

The aim of this article is to determine the effective thermal conductivity of a composite material made of ellipsoidal coated inclusions bonded to a homogeneous isotropic matrix. The distribution of inclusions is considered to be periodic, nevertheless complex pattern can be investigated. An analytical approximate method, which takes into account interactions between inclusions at finite concentration, is proposed to solve steady state heat conduction problems. This method is an extension of the cluster scheme proposed, for elastic materials, by A. Molinari and M. E. Mouden Int. J. Solids Struct., 33, 3131 (1996). The morphological and spatial distribution of inclusions is accounted for in the present approach. Through different examples, results are compared to existing analytical or numerical solutions. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)04407-8].