Bounds on the thermoelastic properties of suspensions of spheres

Results are presented on computations of three-point upper and lower bounds on the effective thermal expansion coefficient, the effective constant-pressure specific heat, and the effective constant-volume specific heat of statistically isotropic suspensions of mutually impenetrable spheres. The effect of polydispersivity in sphere size on the thermoelastic properties is investigated by considering the cases of both equisized and multisized spheres. For reasons of mathematical analogy, the results obtained for the effective thermal expansion coefficient translate immediately into equivalent results for the hygroscopic expansion coefficient.