The influence of the impurity particles distribution on the effective conductivity of a multiphase electrically conductive medium

This paper presents a numerical simulation of the effective electrical conductivity of a conductive medium containing impurity particles with conductivity different from that of the base phase for various particle distributions within the medium. The influence of the relative positions of the particles on the distortion of electric current streamlines and, consequently, changes in the effective properties of the medium are considered, as is the influence of the impurity volume fraction on the conductivity of the mixture. In the range of volume fractions from 0.01 to 0.1, configurations of non-interacting particles, chain-like agglomerates and aggregates of arbitrary shape, as well as randomly distributed particles are considered. A comparison is made of particle distributions characterized by varying degrees of interparticle interactions, as well as some limiting cases of the relative positions of the particles and the influence of a specific distribution of the dispersed medium on the effective conductivity. For each of the impurity distributions under consideration, the dependences of the effective conductivity of the medium on the volume fraction are calculated. The obtained data are compared with analytical models reported in the literature and used in magnetohydrodynamics to describe the effective properties of multiphase conductive fluids.