Simulating local fields in carbon nanotube-reinforced composites for infinite strip with voids

Abstract

A numerical simulation of the thermal properties is conducted for an isotropic and homogeneous infinite strip composite reinforced by carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and containing voids. The CNTs can be uniformly or randomly distributed but are non-overlapping. We model the CNTs as thin perfectly conducting elliptic inclusions and assume the voids to be of circular shape and act as barriers to heat flow. We also impose isothermal conditions on the external boundaries by assuming the lower infinite wall to be a heater under a given temperature, and the upper wall to be a cooler that can be held at a lower fixed temperature. The mathematical model, which takes the form of a mixed Dirichlet–Neumann problem, is solved by applying the boundary integral equation with the generalized Neumann kernel. We illustrate the performance of the proposed method through several numerical examples including the case of the presence of a large number of CNTs and voids.