Abstract
A new boundary element method (BEM) formulation is developed in this paper for modeling and simulation of nonlinear three-temperature (3T) distributions in carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber-reinforced composites embedded with many rigid-line inclusions that can be treated as having constant temperature distributions. The fast multipole method (FMM) has been applied to accelerate the proposed BEM solution of the considered problem of a large number of nano-inclusions, and therefore, the computational complexity and computational time are reduced. The CPU time and memory requirement are also reduced by implementing generalized modified shift-splitting (GMSS) iteration method which does not require the entire matrix to be stored in the memory. Then, we introduced a new formula which can play an important role in solving thermal problems arising in CNT nanotechnology. Effective thermal conductivity of fiber-reinforced composites can be evaluated using the computed temperature and heat flux fields. The fast multipole BEM results are depicted graphically to show the effects of CNT manufacturing methods and thermal conductivities of different CNT composites on the temperature and heat flux distributions. The computational performance of the proposed methodology has been demonstrated. The fast multipole BEM results are compared graphically with the finite element method (FEM) results and with the experimental results reported in the literature. Excellent agreements are found in both cases, which clearly demonstrate the validity, accuracy, and efficiency of our proposed algorithm and modeling and simulation technique. The findings and solutions of this study contribute to the further development of CNT nanotechnology applications and devices.