Experimental Investigation of Thermal Contact Conductance: Variations of Surface Microhardness and Roughness

Abstract

Surface roughness parameters were measured using nine different sampling intervals. The results showed that the roughness of profile was nearly a constant at all sampling intervals; the slope, peak curvature and density of the profile decreased with increasing sampling interval; and the distribution of the peak height was different from the profile height distribution and was not Gaussian. It was found that the surface microhardness value, under small loads, varied with the indentation size and the surface preparation procedure. A model was developed which used a discretization method to obtain the contact radius and area in each section of the surface summit height distribution curve. This model eliminated some of the assumptions made by previous models and can be used to predict the thermal contact conductance without assuming the asperity deformation mode and surface summit height distribution. The predicted thermal contact conductance values were in good agreement with experimental results.