Experimental and numerical evaluation of thermal conductivity of graphene nanoplatelets reinforced aluminium composites produced by powder metallurgy and hot extrusion technique

Graphene Nanoplatelets(GNPs) dispersed aluminium composites with excellent mechanical and thermal properties offer great potentials for heat exchanger applications. Graphene Nanoplatelets reinforced aluminium composites are prepared using powder metallurgy and a hot extrusion process, with the GNPs content ranging from zero to 2 wt. percentage in increments of 0.5 wt%. In this work, the thermal conductivity of aluminium composites with 0.5 wt%, 1 wt%, 1.5% and 2 wt% GNPs are predicted using finite element analysis, experimental and theoretical models. The unit cell approach method is used to find the thermal conductivity of GNPs dispersed aluminium composites numerically. The thermal conductivity of GNPs dispersed aluminium composites are predicted with different models. The thermal conductivity of the GNPs dispersed aluminium composites increases with increasing the wt% of GNPs. After comparisons with the theoretical model and experimental results for thermal conductivity of GNPs dispersed aluminium composites, it can be seen that our finite element analysis result can reach a good agreement with experimental values.