THEORY OF INTERNAL THERMAL-EQUILIBRIUM IN INHOMOGENEOUS STRUCTURES

Characteristic features of the establishment of thermal balance betwee n the phases are identified for an arbitrary P-component composite and the time constant for temperature equalization is calculated. An anal ysis is made to ascertain how the size distribution of the impurity ph ase influences the time behavior of the composite temperature. A Lapla ce transformation is used to find a general expression for delta T-o(t ) and the specific form of this functional dependence is calculated wh en the particles of the finely dispersed phase have a Poisson distribu tion. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S1063-7850(98)02305-2].