Heat conduction analysis of randomly dispersed singlewalled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

This thesis studies the effective thermal conductivity of randomly oriented, percolated carbon nanotubes. To that end, a multiscale analysis approach was adopted. At the nanoscale, molecular dynamics simulation was performed to determine the thermal conductivity coefficient of a single carbon nanotube. Then, thermal conductivity of two carbon nanotubes positioned at different angles were studied after determining the equilibrium positions of the two nanotubes at various relative positions. Finally, using the data obtained in the previous analyses, the effective thermal conductivity of randomly oriented carbon nanotubes was calculated using the finite element model where each nanotube was modeled as a continuous rod.