Numerical Investigation of Thermal Conductivity on Al-12Si/MgOp Composites

The present study focuses on the effect of thermal behavior in the aluminum alloys especially Al-12Si with MgO particulate metal matrix composites. The as-cast Al-12Si alloy and its composites were fabricated using liquid metallurgy method by varying 2 to 10% volume fraction by steps of 2 of particulate of magnesium oxide reinforcements. Guarded heat flow meter test method is used to measure the thermal conductivity of Al-12Si with magnesium oxide composites using an instrument as per ASTME-1225-99. In the numerical study, the finite element package ANSYS is used to calculate the thermal conductivity of the composites.The three-dimensional Solid cylinder coordinates lattice array models are used to simulate microstructure of composite materials for various compositions of reinforcements. This study reveals that the incorporation of aluminum particles results in enhancement of thermal conductivity of magnesium oxide reinforcement particulate and thereby improves its heat transfer capability. The experimentally measured conductivity values are compared with the numerically calculate ones and it is found that the values obtained for various composition composites models using finite element analysis (FEA) are in reasonable agreement with the experimental values