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Updated: Oct 7, 2025

Characterization of Thermal Transport in One-dimensional Solid Materials
Published on: January 26, 2014
Modelling Thermal Conduction in Polydispersed and Sintered Nanoparticle Aggregates
Nikolaos P Karagiannakis1, Eugene D Skouras1,2, Vasilis N Burganos1
1Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences (ICE-HT), Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas (FORTH), GR-26504 Patras, Greece.
Abstract:
Nanoparticle aggregation has been found to be crucial for the thermal properties of nanofluids and their performance as heating or cooling agents. Most relevant studies in the literature consider particles of uniform size with point contact only. A number of forces and mechanisms are expected to lead to deviation from this ideal description. In fact, size uniformity is difficult to achieve in practice; also, overlapping of particles within aggregates may occur. In the present study, the effects of polydispersity and sintering on the effective thermal conductivity of particle aggregates are investigated. A simulation method has been developed that is capable of producing aggregates made up of polydispersed particles with tailored morphological properties. Modelling of the sintering process is implemented in a fashion that is dictated by mass conservation and the desired degree of overlapping. A noticeable decrease in the thermal conductivity is observed for elevated polydispersity levels compared to that of aggregates of monodisperse particles with the same morphological properties. Sintered nanoaggregates offer wider conduction paths through the coalescence of neighbouring particles. It was found that there exists a certain sintering degree of monomers that offers the largest improvement in heat performance.
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