ISSN Online: 2377-424X
ISBN Print: 1-56032-797-9
International Heat Transfer Conference 11
ON THE ENHANCEMENT OF THERMAL CONTACT CONDUCTANCE: EFFECT OF OVERLOADING
Abstract
An experimental program investigating the thermal contact
conductance of stainless steel (AISI304) and mild steel (CIS) surfaces in vacuum is described. The aim of the experiment was to explore overloading as a method of enhancing the thermal contact conductance. The results confirmed that there existed a hysteresis effect in the loading and unloading process. The hysteresis effect reduced as the number of load cycles increased. An encouraging finding of this experimental program was the effect of overloading. It was demonstrated that up to
42% increase in thermal contact conductance can be obtained by means of overloading the contact surfaces beyond the maximum service contact pressure. An explanation of this
overloading effect is also presented. The experimental results suggest a cost effective way to enhance thermal contact conductance for industrial implementation.