Contribution to the Study of Solid-Solid Thermal Contact Resistances--A Comparative Study

Abstract

This study presents a mixed numerical / semi-empirical approach that primarily aimed to estimate the thermal contact resistance between two solids. The results obtained by this mixed method were compared and validated by experimental measurements of this resistance. Three semi-empirical models were used, namely the Mikic model, the Yovanovich model and the Antonetti model. The three-dimensional finite element numerical simulation was used to estimate the contact pressure between the two solids. Then this contact pressure obtained numerically was compared to the hardness of the solids in contact. The findings indicated that the numerically obtained contact pressures were close to hardness. Therefore, the hardness, which is usually used as an input variable in semi-empirical models, was replaced by the contact pressure. The thermal contact resistance obtained by this mixed method was then compared with the experimental one. The outcomes obtained from this comparison turned out to be very conclusive and can therefore be used to reinforce our approach which can actually be viewed as a reliable and low-cost method for estimating the thermal contact resistance between solids in contact.