Understanding macroscopic thermal conduction in composites reinforced with 2D nanosheets

Two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets, such as graphene and hexagonal boron nitride, are considered as the most promising fillers for enhancing thermal conductivity of polymers and phase-change materials. Nevertheless, the effect of various 2D nanosheets on the effective thermal conductivity of composites is not fully understood, and the corresponding prediction model is still lacking, since numerous influence factors and complex thermal transfer networks are involved. This paper aims to study the macroscopically effective thermal conductivity of the nanosheets-reinforced composites in a systematical way, and develop a robust machine learning based prediction model. To this end, a series of representative volume elements are reconstructed based on the SEM observations of experimental samples, and high-throughput simulations are performed via the updated lattice Boltzmann scheme proposed in our recent work. The effects of shape, size, orientation, intrinsic thermal conductivity, interface thermal resistance, surface coating, and hybrid filling of the 2D nanosheets are clarified. This work could provide a deep insight into the effective thermal conductivity of the nanosheets-reinforced composites, and may offer important guidelines for the custom-design of polymer and phase-change composites with targeted thermal performances.