Thermal conductivity of solid cyclopentane C5H10 has been measured at isochoric conditions in the plastic phases I and II for samples of different densities. Isochoric thermal conductivity is nearly constant in phase II and increases with temperature in phase I. Such behaviour is attributed to weakening of the translational orientational coupling which, in turn, leads to a decrease of phonon scattering on rotational excitations. The experimental data are described in terms of a modified Debye model of thermal conductivity with allowance for heat transfer by both low-frequency phonons and diffusive modes.
Using solid C2H6 and C2F6 as an example, the one-axis molecular rotation effect on thermal conductivity has been considered in orientationally-ordered (OO) and orientationally-disordered (OD) phases of simple molecular crystals. The influence of molecular rotation on the heat transfer processes has been studied by a modified method of reduced coordinates, which permitted separating phonon-phonon and phonon-rotation contributions to the total thermal resistance.