Mori-Tanaka Based Estimates of Effective Thermal Conductivity of Various   Engineering Materials
  The purpose of this paper is to present a simple micromechanics-based model to estimate the effective thermal conductivity of real-world macroscopically isotropic materials of matrix-inclusion type. The methodology is based on the well-established Mori-Tanaka method for composite media reinforced with ellipsoidal inclusions, extended to account for imperfect thermal contact at the matrix-inclusion interface, random orientation of particles and particle size distribution. Using simple ensemble averaging arguments, we show that the original Mori-Tanaka relations are still applicable for these complex systems, provided that the inclusion conductivity is appropriately modified. Such conclusion is supported by the verification of the model against a detailed finite-element study as well as its validation against experimental data for a wide range of engineering material systems. 
Jan Str\'ansk\'y, Jan Vorel, Jan Zeman, Michal \v{S}ejnoha
cond-mat.mtrl-sci