Effective thermal conductivity of loose granular materials

A lattice type periodic model formed by finite-spaced point spherical interacting particles, as developed by Pande et al. (1984), is used for the estimation of effective thermal conductivity of loose granular materials, under the effective continuous medium approximation. Calculated values of effective thermal conductivity of these materials have been compared with experimental results. The results are in good agreement. The experimental methods used for the measurements of effective thermal conductivity of these materials are the Transient Hop Strip and Thermal Probe methods.