Heat transfer across aluminum/stainless-steel surfaces in periodic contact

During the past 40 years, the primary emphasis in the study of heat transfer across contacting surfaces has been focused on steady-state contacts. In the area of dissimilar surfaces across the contact, most of the research activity has been devoted to the problem of thermal rectification--the phenomenon of the dependence of the thermal contact conductance h sub c on heat flux direction. Studies of dissimilar steady-state contacts involving Al/stainless steel (e.g. 2024/303) have been reported by several investigators. The objective is to extend the study of heat transfer across periodically contacting surfaces to include observations on the effects of dissimilar metals across the contact interface. The inclusion of these effects on the behavior of the thermal contact conductance and the temperature distributions across such interfaces should provide insight into these parameters for a wider range of material characteristics than is currently addressed. Graphs. 1 ref.--AA