Abstract
A numerical method is developed that takes into account the many‐particle interactions in a rigorous manner to determine the effective thermal conductivity Km of a composite medium consisting of parallel circular cylinders of thermal conductivity αk suspended in a matrix of conductivity k. Numerical results for Km are presented for a wide range of α and φ, the area fraction of the cylinders, after averaging over several computer‐generated random arrays of cylinders. The results obtained via this exact method are compared with those of various approximate analytical methods to assess their utility in predicting Km.

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