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Thermal Contact Conductance pp 45–63Cite as

Gas Gap Conductance

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Part of the book series: Mechanical Engineering Series ((MES))

Abstract

At low contact pressures (of the order of 10-4 H or less), it can be shown that the heat transfer across a joint occurs mainly through the gas gap (Madhusudana, 1993). Boeschoten and van der Held (1957) had also made the qualitative observation that heat transfer was predominantly through the gas gap for “low (up to several kg/sq cm)” contact pressures. Furthermore, Lang (1962) pointed out that the convective heat transfer is usually negligible for gap widths of up to about 6 mm (corresponding to Grashof numbers of 2000 for air at atmospheric pressure of 101 kPa and temperature of 300 K). Since the mean separation between contacting engineering surfaces is some three orders of magnitude less than this dimension, it is clear that convection cannot be the mode of the heat transfer across the gas gap. Thus, the mode of heat transfer across the gas filling the voids between the actual contact spots, as also noted earlier, is principally by conduction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    C. V. Madhusudana

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  1. C. V. Madhusudana
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Madhusudana, C.V. (1996). Gas Gap Conductance. In: Thermal Contact Conductance. Mechanical Engineering Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3978-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3978-9_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8457-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-3978-9

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