Thermal conduction properties of microcracked media: Accounting for the unilateral effect

Studies dedicated to the homogenization approach of microcracked media are largely focused on the determination of effective elastic properties. Some works investigate other properties, but most of them consider only open cracks. This paper intends to provide effective thermal properties related to the conduction problem taking into account the unilateral effect (opening/closure of cracks). Such analysis considers steady-state heat transfer within an initially isotropic media weakened by randomly oriented cracks. According to the boundary conditions, estimates and bounds based on Eshelby-like formalism are developed to derive closed-form expressions for effective thermal conductivity and resistivity in a fixed microcracking state.