Modeling of Effective Stagnant Thermal Conductivity of Porous Media

Based on one-dimensional analysis of heat conduction, a general formula for the effective stagnant thermal conductivity of spatially periodic porous media is derived without assuming local thermal equilibrium. Furthermore, we discuss the contribution of the contact area between particles to the effective stagnant thermal conductivity in detail, and the modification of the formula is proposed to predict the actual effective stagnant thermal conductivity for the porous media. The present results are in good agreement with experimental results of Nozad et al. (1985, “Heat Conduction in Multi-Phase Systems I: Theory and Experiments for Two-Phase Systems,” Chem. Eng. Sci., 40(5), pp. 843–855) for a packed-sphere bed.