Thermal contact conductance of stainless steel-GFRP interface under vacuum environment

► Thermal contact conductance across stainless steel-GFRP surface was investigated. ► Thermal contact conductance increases with increasing interface contact pressure. ► An enhancement reaches its peak at the pressure of 25.54MPa. ► A comparison shows that the prediction of existing model overpredicts measurements. An experimental setup was established to investigate thermal contact conductance across stainless steel-Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) joints under vacuum for the contact pressure ranging from 10MPa to 80MPa. The effects of interface contact pressure and mean interface temperature on thermal contact conductance were studied in this paper. Results indicated that the thermal contact conductance increased with the increase of interface contact pressure, however decreased with the increase of mean interface temperature. Additionally, hysteresis effect was found for stainless steel to GFRP contacts. An enhancement of thermal contact conductance reached its peak (8.9%) at the pressure of 25.54MPa. A comparison of experimental data with existing model showed that the prediction of existing model largely overpredicted measurements.