TY - JOUR AB - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to present a micromechanical model based on a new truly local meshless method for analysis of heat transfer in composite materials.Design/methodology/approach– The presented meshless method is based on the integral form of energy equation in the sub‐particles in the material. In the presented meshless method due to elimination of domain integration the computational efforts are decreased substantially.Findings– Numerical results are presented for temperature distribution, heat flux and thermal conductivity. Numerical results show that the presented meshless method is simple, effective, accurate and less costly method in micromechanical modeling of heat conduction in heterogeneous materials.Research limitations/implications– A small area of the composite system called representative volume element is considered as the solution domain. The fully bonded fiber‐matrix interface is considered and contact thermal resistant is neglected from the fiber matrix interface and so the continuity of temperature and reciprocity of heat flux is satisfied in the fiber‐matrix interface.Originality/value– For the first time a new truly local meshless method based on the integral form of energy equation for the sub‐particles in the materials is presented for analysis of heat transfer in composite materials. VL - 21 IS - 3 SN - 0961-5539 DO - 10.1108/09615531111108477 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/09615531111108477 AU - Ahmadi Isa AU - Aghdam M.M. PY - 2011 Y1 - 2011/01/01 TI - Heat transfer in composite materials using a new truly local meshless method T2 - International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 293 EP - 309 Y2 - 2024/09/18 ER -