  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.
