Heat conduction in a confined solid strip: Response to external strain

We study heat conduction in a system of hard disks confined to a narrow two dimensional channel. The system is initially in a high density solid-like phase. We study, through nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, the dependence of the heat current on an externally applied elongational strain. The strain leads to deformation and failure of the solid and we find that the changes in internal structure can lead to very sharp changes in the heat current. A simple free-volume type calculation of the heat current in a finite hard-disk system is proposed. This reproduces some qualitative features of the current-strain graph for small strains.