LAUSR

Abstract In this paper, the electronic thermal conductivity (ETC) of a 2-dimensional square-pore metallic nanoporous material (MNM) is simulated. It shows that: the influence of nanopore distributions on ETC can be ignored at low porosity (φ ≤ 20–40%). And there will be an equivalent ETC for different distributions. For large porosity, the nanopore distributions become important; the structure of an MNM can be approximately thought to be a series of narrow channels. And there will be a linear relationship between ETC and the channel width while the nanopore size is fixed. A modified classical model can be used to describe the ETC of a MNM. Finally, a calculation model based on the kinetic theory is established to predict the lattice thermal conductivity (LTC). It turns out that the LTC and ETC approximately follow a similar decreasing tendency with increasing porosity. Considering that LTC only accounts for a small proportion of total thermal conductivity (ETC + LTC), the results about ETC may be also suitable for the total thermal conductivity.