Simulation of Thermal Behavior in Hollow-glass-microsphere-filled Cement Composites

Abstract

In this paper, thermal behavior in cement composites filled with hollow glass microspheres was modeled by finite element method based on heat conduction theory. According to experimental observation of the microsphere distribution in the cement matrix material by the scanning electron microscope, a twodimensional unite cell including single hollow glass microsphere and cement material phase is chosen as the computational model, in which the specified temperature conditions are applied on the opposite edges of the cell to model heat transfer in the cell by finite element simulation. The effects of volume content and wall thickness of the microsphere, thermal conductivities of the wall and the cement on the effective thermal conductivity of the composite are investigated. Numerical results demonstrate that the developing lightweight cement-based composite can have significant lower thermal conductivity than the cement matrix itself by introducing the hollow glass microsphere.