In-plane effective thermal conductivity of plain-weave screen laminates

A simple-to-fabricate woven mesh, consisting of bonded laminates of two-dimensional plain-weave conductive screens is described. Geometric equations show that these porous matrices can be fabricated to have a wide range of porosity and specific surface area, /spl beta/. A heat transfer model is developed. It shows that the laminates can have a highly anisotropic thermal conductivity vector, with in-plane effective thermal conductivities ranging up to 78.5% of base material values. A technique to measure the laminate in-plane effective thermal diffusivity is described. Measurements of the in-plane effective thermal diffusivity of copper plain-weave laminates are used to benchmark the model.