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thermal conductivity for polymer matrix DOI: 10.1177/0021998317741953
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composites with hybrid inclusions

MU Siddiqui1,2 and Abul Fazal M Arif2

Abstract
Composites with hybrid inclusions have shown remarkable thermal conductivity enhancement over composites with a
single type of inclusion. However, to achieve maximum thermal conductivity enhancement, the optimum ratio of inclu-
sions in the hybrid mix needs to be determined. In this communication, an effective medium theory based model for the
estimation of effective thermal conductivity of composites with hybrid inclusions is presented. The proposed model
accurately captures the synergic effect of hybrid inclusions within the composite and can be used to optimise the filler
ratio in the hybrid mix. The model has been validated against several published experimental results and is found to be in
good agreement with them. Parametric studies have also been carried out to study the effect of material and model
parameters on the optimum ratio of hybrid inclusions.

Keywords
Effective medium theory, thermal conductivity, hybrid filler, multiple inclusions, percolation

maximum thermal conductivity enhancement, the

Introduction
The demand for thermally conductive composites with
good process-ability is increasing for application in
areas like thermal management as power densities in
electronic devices increase. Traditional composites for
such applications include epoxy or grease matrix
composites with large volume fractions (more than
50%) of high conductivity fillers such as Ag, Al2O3,
AlN or BN.1–3 Such high filler volume fractions lead
to increased costs and reduced process-ability. Carbon
filler materials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs),
graphite nanoplatelets (GNPs) and graphene have
been tested in composites for thermal management
applications and have shown thermal conductivity
enhancements greater than 1000% for GNPs and gra-
phene composites and conductivity enhancements of
100–200% for CNTs.4–7
Recently, polymer matrix composites with hybrid
fillers have shown high thermal conductivity enhance-
ments for low filler volume fractions.8–12 Yu et al.8
showed that for CNT–GNP hybrid fillers in an epoxy
matrix, the GNPs formed a percolating network
through the CNTs that improved the effective thermal
conductivity of the composite. However, to achieve
ratio of the individual fillers in the hybrid composite
needs to be optimised. This optimisation can either be
carried out experimentally or numerically using predic-
tion models for effective thermal conductivity. Besides
the nanotube-nanoplatelet hybrid inclusions, other
combinations have also been reported in literature.
These include using nanotubes with nanoparticles,12,13
using nanoplatelets (GNPs) with nanoparticles14–17 or
using nanoparticles with nanoparticles.18,19
The problem of estimation of the effective thermal
conductivity of composite materials has been widely
studied. Early works in the area were done by
Maxwell20 and Lord Rayleigh21 and later extended by
Hasselman and Johnson22 and Benveniste23 who stu-
died the effects of thermal boundary conductance on
1
Mechanical Engineering Department, DHA Suffa University, Pakistan
2
Mechanical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum
& Minerals, Saudi Arabia
Corresponding author:
MU Siddiqui, Mechanical Engineering Department, DHA Suffa University,
DG-78, Off Khayaban-e-Tufail, Ph-VII (Ext.), DHA, Karachi 75500,
Pakistan.
Email: musiddiqui@dsu.edu.pk
2 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

the effective thermal conductivity of the composite. n is the number of inclusion particles and G is the
Expressions for the effective thermal conductivity of Green’s tensor.32 In equation (2) the first summation
composites with dilute concentrations of inclusions of contributes the effects of individual inclusion particles
different shapes have been presented by Nan et al.24 A while the remaining summations contribute the effects
generalisation of Nan et al.’s model to composites with of particle interactions.
multiple inclusions, nanometer sized inclusions and If the inclusion is assumed to be dilute in the matrix,
non-uniformly dispersed inclusions has been presented the interactions between particles can be ignored. In
by Siddiqui and Arif 25. In literature, models based on this case, T can be approximated as
Nan et al.’s effective medium theory (EMT) model24 for X X
the estimation of effective thermal conductivity of com- 1
Tffi Tn ¼ K0 n ðI  GK0 n Þ ð3Þ
posites with hybrid fillers have also been reported.26,27 n n
One major issue in thermal conductivity estimation
models is the missing information regarding the quality The same approach can be extended for N inclusion
(and therefore the resistance) of the thermal interface. types by summing Tn over all particles of all inclusion
The interfacial thermal resistance can either be types.27 This is shown mathematically in equation (4).
estimated using mathematical models28,29 or deter- XX XX
mined experimentally.30,31 In many cases, using values Tffi Tn ¼ K0 n ðI  GK0 n Þ
1
ð4Þ
reported in literature provides satisfactory results. One N n N n
method that can be particularly useful in the case of
composites with hybrid inclusion is to calibrate the The effective thermal conductivity of the composite
thermal resistance of the individual inclusions by com- can then be calculated using equations (5) to (14) which
paring the single inclusion conductivity model with reduce to Nan et al.’s equations for the case of single
single inclusion experimental results. inclusion type.24
In this work, we present an improved EMT model
for the thermal conductivity estimation of composites Keff, 11 ¼ Keff, 22
with hybrid inclusions (nanotubes and nanoplatelets). 8 XN h    2 i  9
>
<2þ ’ i  i
1  Li
1 þ cos  > =
The proposed model can capture the effect of varying i¼1 11 11
 i
: þ i 1  Li  1  cos2 i
ratio of filler inclusions on the effective thermal con- > >
;
ductivity of the composite and can be used to determine 33 33
¼ Km 8 XN h   i  9
the optimum inclusion ratio. The application of the >
<2 ’ i11 Li11 1 þ cos2  >
i¼1 i
=
formulated EMT model is demonstrated for several
i
composites with hybrid fillers reported in the literature. : þi Li 1  cos2 i
> >
;
Studies have also been carried out to analyse the effect 33 33

of material parameters on the optimum hybrid inclu- ð5Þ

sion ratios.
Keff, 33
8 XN h    2 i  9
EMT model >
<1þ ’ i  i
11 1  L i
11 1  cos  > =
i¼1
 i
We start by presenting the generalised EMT of Siddiqui : þ i 1  Li  cos2 i
> >
;
and Arif25 for composites with multiple inclusions. For 33 33
a medium, whose thermal conductivity varies from
¼ Km 8 XN h   i  9
>
<1 ’ i11 Li11 1  cos2  > =
point to point per the function KðrÞ ¼ K0 þ K0 ðrÞ, i¼1 i
i
where K0 and K 0 ðrÞ are the homogeneous and fluctuat- : þ i Li cos2 i
> >
;
33 33
ing parts, the effective thermal conductivity can be
derived as ð6Þ

Keff ¼ K0 þ hTiðI þ ½GTÞ1 ð1Þ where

where I is the unit tensor, hi denotes volumetric average Kic,kk  Km

and T is the transition matrix given by ikk ¼   ð7Þ
Km þ Likk Kic,kk  Km
X X
T¼ Tn þ Tn GTm þ . . . ð2Þ R
n n,m6¼n  2
i i ðÞcos2  sin d
cos  ¼ R ð8Þ
i ðÞ sin d
Siddiqui and Arif 3

(  
i
Kinc:i = 1 þ 11 Li33 Kinc:i =Km , for platelet inclusions (5) where ’1p is the percolation threshold and n is the
Kic,11 ¼  i

Kinc:i = 1 þ 11 Li11 Kinc:i =Km , for other shapes critical exponent. The critical exponent n represents the
(  
i
Kinc:i = 1 þ 33 Li11 Kinc:i =Km , for cylindrical inclusions amount of percolation in the composite and is a func-
Kic,33 ¼  i
 tion of the volume fraction of the lower dimensional
Kinc:i = 1 þ 33 Li33 Kinc:i =Km , for other shapes
inclusion. A lower value of n indicates higher percola-
ð9Þ tion. Whereas as Chu et al. used a constant value of the
(  exponent n, we propose equation (15) for determining n
i 2 þ 1=p k , for pi  1
i
kk ¼   ð10Þ which describes the critical exponent as a function of
1 þ 2pi k , for pi 5 1 the tube-type inclusion volume fraction.
8 2
>
>
i
 p2    pi
3=2 cosh1 pi , for pi  1 n ¼ m þ ð1  mÞ expð10’2 =’total Þ ð15Þ
>
< 2 pi 1 2
2 pi 1
Li11 ¼ Li22 ¼
>
> pi
2
pi where the parameter m is the maximum value of n, ’2 is
: 2pi 2 1 þ 
>  cos1 pi , for pi 5 1
2 3=2 the volume fraction of the tube-type inclusion and ’total
2 1pi
is the total inclusion volume fraction being added.
ð11Þ
Additionally, as shown by Chu et al.,27 the percola-
tion threshold, ’1p , is very small (0.001) and has been
Li33 ¼ 1  2Li11 ð12Þ
ignored in the current work. Applying the modification,
the EMT for a composite with hybrid inclusions is
ik ¼ RiTB Km =ak ð13Þ given by equation (16).
pi ¼ ai3 =ai1 ð14Þ 2 þ ’n1 X111 þ ’2 X211
Keff,11 ¼ Keff,22 ¼ Km
2  ’1 Y111 þ ’2 Y211
and Km and Kinc: i are the thermal conductivities of the ð16Þ
1 þ ’n1 X133 þ ’2 X233
matrix and the ith inclusion, ’i is the volume fraction of Keff,22 ¼ Km
the ith inclusion, RiTB is the interface resistance between 1  ’1 Y133 þ ’2 Y233
i i
the matrix and the ith inclusion,
 2a1i and a3 are the radii
of the spheroidal inclusion, cos  provides the effect where
of orientation on the effective thermal conductivity, Lkk
   i     i 
are well-known shape factors and Kic,kk are the reduced Xi11 ¼ i11 1  Li11 1 þ cos2  þ i33 1  Li33 1  cos2 
thermal conductivities of the inclusions due to the effect   i    i 
of thermal interface resistance and inclusion shape. Yi11 ¼ i11 Li11 1 þ cos2  þ i33 Li33 1  cos2 
   i    i 
Xi33 ¼ i11 1  Li11 1  cos2  þ i33 1  Li33 cos2 
Effect of hybrid inclusions   i   i
Yi33 ¼ i11 Li11 1  cos2  þ i33 Li33 cos2 
In case of composites with hybrid inclusions i.e. a com-
bination of platelet and tube type inclusions, the inclu- ð17Þ
sions can form a percolating network that improves the
effective thermal conductivity of the composite. In the and the remaining parameters have been defined in the
current work for the case of two inclusions, it is previous section.
assumed that the higher dimensional inclusion (plate-
lets), referred with i ¼ 1, forms a percolating network
through the lower dimensional inclusion (tubes),
Model validation
referred with i ¼ 2. To validate the proposed modelling approach, the
A recent work on the modelling of the effective ther- experimental work carried by Yu et al.8 on Epoxy-
mal conductivity of polymer nanocomposites with hybrid CNT–GNP nanocomposites was selected. In
hybrid fillers was presented by Chen et al.26 They their work, Yu et al. fixed the total inclusion weight
used the EMT and the thermal resistance method to fraction to 10% and varied the ratio of CNTs and
formulate a two-step analytical model for the thermal GNPs. The inclusion dimensions and material proper-
conductivity of polymer nanocomposites with hybrid ties used in the model are given in Table 1. The param-
inclusions. eter m was set as 0.86. A comparison of the predicted
Chu et al.27 modified the EMT model by Nan et al. effective thermal conductivity with experimental
by replacing ’1 , the volume fraction of the platelet measurements is shown in Figure 1(a). The predicted
 n
inclusion, with ’1  ’1p in the numerator of equation thermal conductivities by Chen et al.’ model, Chu
et al.’s model (n ¼ 0.86) and Nan et al.’s model (n ¼ 1)
4 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

are also shown in the figure. As shown, the proposed To further validate the proposed model, the model
model accurately captures the varying level of percola- was used to predict the effective thermal conductivity of
tion in the composite providing very accurate estimates the two composites with hybrid fillers, an epoxy matrix
for the effective thermal conductivity. The proposed composite with 1 wt.% CNT–GNP hybrid filler10 and
model also accurately predicts the optimum ratio of an epoxy matrix composite with 1 wt.% boron nitride
CNTs and GNPs for maximising the effective thermal nanotube (BNNT)-boron nitride nanosheets (BNNS)
conductivity. On the other hand, the model by Chu hybrid filler.9 CNT and GNP properties were taken
et al. over-predicts the thermal conductivity at low from Table 1 and the inclusion dimensions were taken
levels of percolation (i.e. low weight fraction of from the experimental work of Yang et al.10 For the
CNTs) because of the use of a constant critical expo- Epoxy-hybrid BNNT-BNNS nanocomposite, the
nent. Nan et al.’s model fails to capture the effect of material properties and inclusion dimension were
percolation entirely and predicts a linear dependence of taken from the experimental work of Yan et al.9 and
the effective thermal conductivity on the ratio of CNTs are given in Table 2. The thermal interface resistance
and GNPs added. for BNNT and BNNS were assumed to be of the same
Interesting insights into the percolating behaviour of order as for CNT and GNP inclusions respectively.
the hybrid composite can be gained by looking at the The comparison of the model predictions with experi-
dependence of the critical exponent on the amount of mentally determined values of thermal conductivity the
CNTs in the composite. This is shown in Figure 1(b). cases of CNT–GNP hybrid filler (m ¼ 0.87) and BNNT-
The figure shows that the percolation in the composite BNNS hybrid filler (m ¼ 0.88) are shown in Figure 2(a)
increases as the CNTs are added and reaches a max- and (b) respectively. Estimated effective thermal con-
imum level well before the maximum amount of CNTs ductivities using Chu et al.’s model and Nan et al.’s
are added in the composite. model are also presented for comparison. The useful-
ness of the model is especially shown in Figure 2(b) for
Epoxy-hybrid BNNT-BNNS composite in which the
Table 1. Properties used for Epoxy-Hybrid CNT–GNP model predicts a higher effective thermal conductivity
nanocomposite. for a BNNT-BNNS fraction ratio (1:4) not tested by
the Yan et al.9
Thermal
Thermal interface
conductivity resistance Diameter Aspect Optimisation of hybrid inclusions
Material [W/m K] [108 m2 K/W] [nm] ratio
Figures 1 and 2 show that for polymer matrix nano-
Epoxy 0.2 – – – composites with nanotube/nanoplatelet hybrid inclu-
CNT 300033 1 1.48 3508 sions, the ratio of the amounts of nanotubes to
GNP 400033 0.3933,34 5008 2508 nanoplatelets being added to the polymer matrix
needs to be optimised to achieve maximum enhance-
CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.
ment of the thermal conductivity. Since the proposed

(a) (b)

Figure 1. (a) Effective thermal conductivity of Epoxy-Hybrid CNT–GNP nanocomposite of Yu et al.8 (b) Variation of the critical
exponent.
CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.
Siddiqui and Arif 5

model can model the entire range of nanotube to nano- The formulated approach has been applied to deter-
platelet ratios, it can be used to determine the optimum mine the optimum inclusion ratio for the three valid-
inclusion ratio. ation cases presented in the previous section for Epoxy
From Figures 1 and 2, it can be seen that to deter- CNT/GNP and Epoxy BNNT/BNNS nanocomposites.
mine the optimum nanotube/nanoplatelet ratio, the The results are presented in Figure 3 which shows (a)
derivative of effective thermal conductivity with respect the normalised effective thermal conductivity of the
to the inclusion volume fraction i.e. the gradient of the composites and (b) the normalised gradient of the
curve should be zero. To get the derivative, we start by curve for the three cases.
rewriting equation (5) as a function of ’1 and calculat- From Figure 3, the optimum GNP weight fraction
ing its derivative. The derivative of Keff,11 with respect for Yu et al.’s composite8 and BNNT-BNNS ratio for
to ’1 is given by equation (18). Yan et al.’s composite9 was found to be around 80% of
  total inclusions. This translates to a CNT–GNP ratio of
’
10ð1’ 1 Þ 1:4 by weight. On the other hand, for Yang et al.’s
1 n 10ð1mÞe total lnð’1 Þ n 2
X11 ’1 þ ’1  X11
dKeff,11 ’total composite,10 the optimum GNP weight fraction was
¼ Km determined as 35% of total inclusions resulting in a
d’1 Y211 ð’1  ’total Þ  Y111 ’1 þ 2
 2    CNT–GNP ratio of around 1.86:1 by weight. The dif-
Y11  Y111 X111 ’1 n þ X211 ð’total  ’1 Þ þ 2
Km  1 2 ð18Þ ference in the optimum ratios for Yang et al.’s compos-
Y11 ð’1  ’total Þ  Y111 ’1 þ 2 ites from the composites of Yu et al. and Yan et al. was
due to the conductivity enhancement provided by
CNTs and GNPs separately. For the composites of
Yu et al. and Yan et al., the thermal conductivity
Table 2. Properties used for Epoxy-Hybrid BNNT-BNNS
enhancement provided by nanoplatelets was higher
nanocomposite. than the enhancement provided by the nanotubes.
For Yang et al.’s composites, the conductivity enhance-
Thermal ment provided by GNPs was lower than that provided
Thermal interface by CNTs by 25%.
conductivity resistance Diameter Aspect To further investigate the dependence of the opti-
Material [W/m K] [108 m2 K/W] [lm] ratio
mum inclusion ratio on inclusion parameters, four
Epoxy 0.19 – – – parametric studies were carried out for Epoxy CNT/
BNNT 200 2 3  103 350 GNP composite in which the effect of inclusion aspect
BNNS 200 0.5 1 250 ratios and interfacial thermal resistance on the opti-
mum inclusion ratio was studied. Only one parameter
BNNT: boron nitride nanotube; BNNS: boron nitride nanosheets. was varied at one time. The remaining parameters were

(a) (b)

Figure 2. Effective thermal conductivity of (a) Epoxy-Hybrid CNT–GNP nanocomposite of Yang et al.10 and (b) Epoxy-Hybrid
BNNT-BNNS nanocomposite of Yan et al.9
BNNT: boron nitride nanotube; BNNS: boron nitride nanosheets; CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.
6 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

(a) (b)

Figure 3. (a) Normalised effective thermal conductivity and (b) normalised curve gradient of the validation cases.

(a) (b)

Figure 4. Effect of CNT aspect ratio on (a) normalised effective thermal conductivity and (b) normalised curve gradient of Epoxy
CNT/GNP hybrid nanocomposite.
CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.

kept constant as presented in Table 1. The results of the
parametric studies are presented in Figures 4 to 7 in the
form normalised effective thermal conductivities of the
nanocomposites and the normalised curve gradients
plotted against the normalised weight fraction of
GNPs.
Figures 4 and 5 show the effect of CNT and GNP
inclusion aspect ratios on the optimum inclusion ratios
needed to maximise the effective thermal conductivity
of the nanocomposites. Figure 4 shows that increasing
the CNT aspect ratio improves the thermal conductiv-
ity enhancement effect of CNTs. As the CNT aspect
ratio is increased from 100 to 1000, the optimum
amount of GNP in the 10 wt.% inclusion added to
the matrix reduces from 8.5 wt.% to 1.8 wt.%. Thus,
the optimum CNT–GNP ratio changes from 1:5.67 to
4.56:1 as the CNT aspect ratio is increased from 100 to
1000.
The dependence of the optimum hybrid inclusion
ratio on GNP aspect ratio is shown in Figure 5. The
figure shows that reducing the GNP aspect ratio
increases the thermal conductivity enhancement effect
of GNP inclusion. As the GNP aspect ratio is reduced
from 1/100 to 1/500, the optimum CNT–GNP ratio
changes from 1.22:1 to 1:5.67 which correspond to
GNP weight fractions of 5.5 wt.% and 8.5 wt.%
respectively out of the total inclusion weight fraction
of 10 wt.%. It can also be seen from the figure that the
improvement in conductivity enhancement with redu-
cing GNP aspect ratio is insignificant below a threshold
Siddiqui and Arif
(a)
Figure 5. Effect of GNP aspect ratio on (a) normalised effective thermal conductivity and (b) normalised curve gradient of Epoxy
CNT/GNP hybrid nanocomposite.
CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.
(a)
Figure 6. Effect of CNT interfacial thermal resistance on (a) normalised effective thermal conductivity and (b) normalised curve
gradient of Epoxy CNT/GNP hybrid nanocomposite.
CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.
value. For the material parameters considered in the
study, the threshold aspect ratio was determined to be
1/500.
Figures 6 and 7 show the effects of CNT and GNP
thermal interface resistance on the optimum inclusion
ratio respectively. An interesting inference can be made
from the two figures regarding the relative importance
of low thermal resistance at the polymer-CNT interface
and the polymer-GNP interface. Figure 6 shows that
thermal conductivity enhancement due to the synergic
effect of hybrid inclusions is still valid when the inter-
facial thermal resistance at the polymer-CNT interface
is high (5  107 m2K/W in the current study). This
7
(b)
(b)
means that the use of hybrid inclusions will provide
an improvement in thermal conductivity over single
type inclusions even for the case of bad thermal inter-
face between CNTs and polymer. On the other
hand, for the polymer-GNP interface, high interfacial
thermal resistance results in a lower effective thermal
conductivity for all hybrid inclusions ratios in compari-
son to the polymer-CNT composite. This means that
no synergic effect is seen if GNP-polymer thermal
resistance is very high. This is shown in Figure 7.
Therefore, a good polymer-GNP interface is crucial
for achieving thermal conductivity enhancement from
hybrid inclusions.
8 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

(a) (b)

Figure 7. Effect of GNP interfacial thermal resistance on (a) normalised effective thermal conductivity and (b) normalised curve
gradient of Epoxy CNT/GNP hybrid nanocomposite.
CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.

(a) (b)

Figure 8. Effect of model parameter m on (a) normalised effective thermal conductivity and (b) normalised curve gradient of Epoxy
CNT/GNP hybrid nanocomposite.
CNT: carbon nanotubes; GNP: graphite nanoplatelet.

An additional parametric study was conducted to
analyse the effect of model parameter m, used in equa-
tion (15) on the optimum inclusion ratio predicted by
the model. This study is important since the parameter
m is a priori unknown. Therefore, it is crucial to iden-
tify whether the model can predict the optimum hybrid
inclusion ratio using an assumed value of parameter m.
The results of the parametric study are presented in
Figure 8 in which parameter m has been varied within
the range 0.8–0.9. The figure shows that as the param-
eter m is increased from 0.8 to 0.9, the fraction of GNPs
in the optimum hybrid filler increases from 78% to
87% of the total inclusions by weight. When the nor-
malised effective thermal conductivities of all cases are
analysed from Figure 8(a), it is evident that choosing
any value of m will ensure that the finalised inclusion
ratio will provide an effective thermal conductivity very
close to the optimum value. For the composite con-
sidered, the predicted optimum inclusion ratio will pro-
vide an effective thermal conductivity which is at least
95% of the optimum value. It is recommended to use
an intermediate value of m (0.85) which can provide a
good estimate for all cases.
Conclusions
In this paper, we presented and validated an improved
EMT model for the estimation of effective thermal
Siddiqui and Arif
conductivity of polymer matrix composites with hybrid
fillers with varying ratio of inclusions.
Several parametric studies were carried out to ana-
lyse the effects of material parameters on the optimum
hybrid inclusion ratio. From the study on the effect of
aspect ratio, it was found that increasing nanotube
aspect ratio and reducing nanoplatelet aspect ratio
increases the thermal conductivity enhancement effect
of the respective inclusions. Therefore, inclusion aspect
ratios have a significant effect on the optimum inclusion
ratio. It was also found that for nanoplatelet inclusions,
reducing the aspect ratio below a threshold value has
no significant effect on the optimum inclusion ratio.
For the epoxy CNT/GNP considered in the parametric
study, the threshold aspect ratio was determined to
be 1/500.
From the study on the effect of thermal interface
resistance, it was found that nanotubes can provide
an improvement in the hybrid composite even with
very high interfacial resistance values. On the other
hand, low resistance at the polymer-nanoplatelet inter-
face is very important to ensure thermal conductivity
enhancement in the hybrid composite. In the study con-
ducted, the effective thermal conductivity of the com-
posite with hybrid inclusions was lower than the
polymer-CNT composite when the polymer-GNP inter-
facial resistance was higher than 5  108 m2 K/W.
A study on the effect of model parameter m on the
optimum inclusion ratio showed that an assumed value
for model parameter m can provide a good estimate of
the optimum ratio for the hybrid inclusions. The use of
an intermediate value (0.85) is recommended to min-
imise the differences between the model and the actual
composite measurements.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: The authors would like to acknowledge the support
provided by King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals
(KFUPM) in funding this work through project FT161007.
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