Effective structure of aerogels and decomposed contributions of its thermal conductivity

In this paper, a new effective model, spherical hollow cube model, is proposed based on the structures of aerogels and the prediction equation for the apparent thermal conductivity is theoretically derived. The effective thermal conductivity of different types of aerogels is estimated by the present model, and the predicted results are more agreeable with experimental data than that of the previous models. In addition, the thermal conductivity of two nano-porous materials at different gas pressure is investigated experimentally. The contributions of gas conduction, solid conduction and thermal radiation are obtained by decomposition method. - Highlights: • Deviation of effective thermal conductivity via effective models is analyzed. • An effective model based on the structures of aerogels is proposed and verified its adaptability. • Thermal conductivity of two materials at different gas pressure is measured. • Contribution of gas conduction, solid conduction and thermal radiation is decomposed