Numerical investigation into thermal contact conductance between linear and curvilinear contacts

Abstract

Heat transfer has considerable applications in different industries such as designing of heat exchangers, nuclear reactor cooling, control system for spacecraft, and microelectronics cooling. As the surfaces of two metals make contact with each other, this issue becomes so crucial. Thermal Contact Resistance (TCR) is one of the key physical parameters in heat transfer of the mentioned surfaces. Measuring the experimental value of TCR in laboratory is highly expensive and difficult. As an alternative, numerical modeling methods could be engaged. In this study, inverse problem method solution is utilized as a proper method for estimation of TCR value. To that end, three different configurations, namely, flat-flat, flat-cylinder, and cylinder-cylinder, were utilized in two steady and unsteady state conditions to predict the value of TCR. A comparison between the measured and obtained values from the simulation shows that the errors for flat-flat, flat-cylinder, and cylinder-cylinder configurations after 10 minutes from starting the experiment are 4.6074%, 0.1662%, and 0.5622%, respectively. For steady state condition, the corresponding errors are 6.06e-3%, 1.506%, and 0.846%, respectively. In conclusion, the final results establish the fact that the inverse problem method solution can predict TCR values between contacting surfaces.