Fractal analysis of the thermal contact conductance for mechanical interface

As the increasing demand for thermal performance of mechanical products, thermal contact conductance (TCC) is widely used in the thermal-mechanical analysis. This paper presents a TCC prediction model based on fractal geometry. Besides the fractal dimension and fractal roughness parameter, the fractal domain area is estimated according to the fractal characteristics of the surface topography. Based on these three fractal parameters, the TCC of the interface with or without fluidic interface material can be calculated. The experimental results show that the fractal model is superior to the TCC models based on GW geometry in accuracy and numerical stability. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.