Thermal contact resistance at low contact pressure: Effect of elastic deformation

Existing models over-predict the thermal contact resistance of conforming rough joints at low contact pressures. However, the applicable pressure range in some applications such as microelectronics cooling is low. A new model is developed which is more suitable for low pressures. The effect of elastic deformations beneath the plastically deformed microcontacts is determined by superimposing normal deformations due to self and neighboring contact spots in an elastic half-space. A parametric study reveals that the elastic deformation effect is an important phenomenon at low contact pressures. The model is compared with data and good agreement is observed at low contact pressures.