Homogenization‐Based FEM Study of Transient Heat Transfer in Some Composite Materials Available to Purchase

Effectiveness of the homogenization method for various heat transfer problems of engineering composites is the main aim of the paper. This comparative study is done for layered, fiber and particle reinforced Representative Volume Elements (RVE) for composites made of widely used components. Mathematical model is based on the effective modules method introduced for periodic composites ‐ effective heat conductivity is calculated in the closed form for specific spatial distribution of the components, while effective volumetric heat capacity is obtained from a simple spatial averaging. Such a homogenization scheme makes possible to significantly simplify the numerical analysis of transient heat transfer phenomena in various types of composites. The comparison of temperature histories obtained for the real and homogenized composite models is carried out using the Finite Element Method system ANSYS. As is demonstrated for various boundary problems, a homogenization technique in terms of composites types collected in the paper give satisfactory agreement with the real structure modeling; further numerical studies on composite cells discretization should increase modeling efficiency and diminish the numerical errors.