Recent Developments in Contact Conductance Heat Transfer

1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (4b) ◽  
pp. 1059-1070 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. S. Fletcher

The characteristics of thermal contact conductance are increasingly important in a wide range of technologies. As a consequence, the number of experimental and theoretical investigations of contact conductance has increased. This paper reviews and categorizes recent developments in contact conductance heat transfer. Among the topics included are the theoretical/analytical/numerical studies of contact conductance for conforming surfaces and other surface geometries; the thermal conductance in such technological areas as advanced or modern materials, microelectronics, and biomedicine; and selected topics including thermal rectification, gas conductance, cylindrical contacts, periodic and sliding contacts, and conductance measurements. The paper concludes with recommendations for emerging and continuing areas of investigation.

Author(s):  
Chukwudi Azih ◽  
Reilly MacCoy ◽  
Hazem Mazhar ◽  
Chris Fraser

Abstract In some engineered systems, the interface thermal conductance is a key parameter that governs the heat transfer behaviour of components in solid-solid contact. For example, in certain postulated accident scenarios for CANDU reactors, the pressure tube (PT) may deform into contact with the calandria tube (CT) to form a more direct path for heat transfer from the fuel to the moderator. There have been no direct measurements of interface thermal conductance in integrated “Contact boiling” experiments designed to mimic this Loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) scenario due to the geometrical limits of the test components and the cumbersome nature of the instrumentation required to extract contact conductance data. It has been noted that the modelling of the contact conductance is one of the main sources of uncertainty in predicting the outcome of the contact boiling experiments that mimic LOCA scenarios. The present study demonstrated an analogy between the electrical and thermal contact conductance for PT/CT interfaces. The range of interface pressure and interface temperatures studies are selected to match the expected range of conditions during a CANDU LOCA scenario. The experiment setup consists of two sets of specimen representing PT and CT material. The specimen are instrumented with four K-type thermocouples in sequence to capture the temperature gradient imposed via a three-chamber oven. Within a range of interface pressures from 2 to 7 MPa and a temperature range from 510 to 720°C, the analogy is independent of the interface pressure or the load applied. This demonstrates the measurement of the electrical conductance between the PT and CT in contact boiling as a promising technique for obtaining in-situ information on the thermal contact conductance during integrated experiments.


1991 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. F. Stevenson ◽  
G. P. Peterson ◽  
L. S. Fletcher

An investigation was conducted to verify experimentally the existence of thermal rectification and to determine the effect of surface roughness and material type. Four pairs of test specimens were evaluated: one with a smooth Nickel 200 surface in contact with a rough Nickel 200 surface, one with a smooth Stainless Steel 304 surface in contact with a rough Stainless Steel 304 surface, one with a smooth Nickel 200 surface in contact with a rough Stainless Steel 304 surface, and finally, one with a smooth Stainless Steel 304 surface in contact with a rough Nickel 200 surface. The thermal contact conductance was measured for heat flow from both the smooth to rough and rough to smooth configurations for all four pairs. The results indicate that thermal rectification is a function of surface characteristics, material type, and heat flow direction. For similar materials in contact, some thermal rectification was observed with heat flow from the rough surface to the smooth surface resulting in a higher value of contact conductance. For dissimilar materials, the thermal contact conductance was highest when the heat flow was from the Stainless Steel 304 to Nickel 200. In these cases, the surface roughness was shown to be of secondary importance.


Author(s):  
Yongsheng Zhao ◽  
Cui Fang ◽  
Ligang Cai ◽  
Zhifeng Liu

The thermal contact conductance is an important problem in the field of heat transfer. In this research, a three-dimensional fractal theory based on the thermal contact conductance model is presented. The topography of the contact surfaces was fractal featured and determined by fractal parameters. The asperities in the microscale were considered as elastic, elastic-plastic, or plastic deformations. The real contact area of the asperities could be obtained based on the Hertz contact theory. It was assumed that the rough contact surface was composed of numerous discrete and parallel microcontact cylinders. Consequently, the thermal contact conductance of the surface roughness was composed of the thermal constriction conductance of microcontacts and the air medium thermal conductance of microgaps. The thermal contact conductance of rough surfaces could be calculated by the microasperities integration. An experimental set-up with annular interface was designed to verify the presented thermal contact conductance model. Three materials were used for the thermal contact conductance analysis with different fractal dimensions D and fractal roughness parameters G. The numerical results demonstrated that the thermal contact conductance could be affected by the elastic-plastic deformation of the asperities and the gap thermal conductance should not be ignored under the lower contact load. The presented model would provide a theoretical basis for thermal transfer engineering application.


1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. R. Sridhar ◽  
M. M. Yovanovich

A New thermal elastoplastic contact conductance model for isotropic conforming rough surfaces is proposed. This model is based on surface and thermal models used in the Cooper, Mikic, and Yovanovich plastic model, but it differs in the deformation aspects of the thermal contact conductance model. The model incorporates the recently developed simple elastoplastic model for sphere-flat contacts, and it covers the entire range of material behavior, i.e., elastic, elastoplastic, and fully plastic deformation. Previously data were either compared with the elastic model or the plastic model assuming a type of deformation a priori. The model is used to reduce previously obtained isotropic contact conductance data, which cover a wide range of surface characteristics and material properties. For the first time data can be compared with both the elastic and plastic models on the same plot. This model explains the observed discrepancies noted by previous workers between data and the predictions of the elastic or plastic models.


1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (4b) ◽  
pp. 1046-1058 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. V. Beck

This paper discusses parameter estimation, function estimation, and a combination of the two. An example of parameter estimation is the determination of thermal conductivity of solids from transient temperature measurements. An example of function estimation is the inverse heat conduction problem, which uses transient temperature measurements to determine the surface heat flux history. The examples used herein involve the determination of the thermal contact conductance. Two sets of very good data are analyzed. One set of steady-state data was obtained by Antonetti and Eid (1987). The other set was obtained by Moses and Johnson (1986) under transient conditions for periodic contact. Both sets of data are used to illustrate parameter, function, and combined estimation. It is demonstrated that the proposed methods are more powerful then commonly accepted methods. Many other heat transfer problems can be treated using the proposed techniques.


1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (4) ◽  
pp. 684-690 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Lambert ◽  
L. S. Fletcher

Junction thermal conductance is an important consideration in such applications as thermally induced stresses in supersonic and hypersonic flight vehicles, nuclear reactor cooling, electronics packaging, spacecraft thermal control, gas turbine and internal combustion engine cooling, and cryogenic liquid storage. A fundamental problem in analyzing and predicting junction thermal conductance is determining thermal contact conductance of nonflat rough metals. Workable models have been previously derived for the limiting idealized cases of flat, rough, and spherical smooth surfaces. However, until now no tractable models have been advanced for nonflat rough “engineering” surfaces which are much more commonly dealt with in practice. The present investigation details the synthesis of previously derived models for macroscopically nonuniform thermal contact conductance and contact of nonflat rough spheres into a thermomechanical model, which is presented in an analytical/graphical format. The present model agrees well with representative experimental conductance results from the literature for stainless steel 303 and 304 with widely varying nonflatness (2 to 200 μm) and roughness (0.1 to 10 μm).


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