Particle-scale study of heat transfer in granular geomaterials

Abstract

The effective thermal conductivity of granular geomaterials is the one of the most important parameters in some geotechnical and reservoir engineering applications. Various effective thermal conductivity models have been developed over the years, aiming to predict effective thermal conductivity accurately. However, these models usually predict effective thermal conductivity that are different from the experimental measurements. This may be due to the limited access to the material microstructure and thus limited understanding of its effects on the macroscopic or ‘engineering’ effective thermal conductivity. With the advent of computed tomography and complex network theory, digital samples ca..