ELECTRICAL-CONDUCTIVITY OF MATERIALS CONTAINING PARTIAL MELT - SIMPLE-MODEL FROM ARCHIES LAW

The presence of partial melt can profoundly affect the bulk electrical properties of composite materials. A class of melt distributions is considered where melt forms is one place and accumulates elsewhere; a case modelled by a simple modification of Archie's Law for porous media. This relation provides values for the bulk conductivity intermediate to those for a thoroughly connected melt distribution and those for isolated melt pockets. Thus, if melt is tortuously distributed, larger amounts are required to produce a given increase of the bulk conductivity, than if it is thoroughly interconnected along grain boundaries. Copyright 1979 by the American Geophysical Union.