Theoretical modeling and experimental validation for the effective thermal conductivity of moist silica aerogel

•A new fractal-intersecting sphere with inhomogeneous water film structual model is proposed.•Theoretical model for predicting effective thermal conductivity in moist aerogel material is built.•The influence of moisture, micron-scale additives and nano-scale heat transfer effect are all considered.•The transient plane source method is adopted in experiment procedure.