It has been more than a decade since the thermal conductivity of vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) arrays was reported possible to exceed that of the best thermal greases or phase change materials by an order of magnitude. Despite tremendous prospects as a thermal interface material (TIM), results were discouraging for practical applications. The primary reason is the large thermal con...

Certain problems in which a cooled rigid punch indents an elastic half-space have no steady state solution. A simple model is described in which it is shown that this paradox is avoided by the assumption of a thermal resistance varying inversely with contact pressure. A limiting case of this system retains linearity and introduces a state of "imperfect" contact in which contact pressure is negl...

in this paper, finite element elastic contact analysis of a functionally graded (fg) hollow brake disk in contact with pad, subjected to rotation, contact pressure and frictional heat is presented. the material properties vary through the thickness according to a power-law characterised by a grading index, n. the material property is purely steel at the core part and gradually moves and approac...

An apparatus has been designed and constructed to characterize thermal interface materials with unprecedented precision and sensitivity. The design of the apparatus is based upon a popular implementation of ASTM D5470 where well-characterized meter bars are used to extrapolate surface temperatures and measure heat flux through the sample under test. Measurements of thermal resistance, effective...

-A linear perturbation method is used to examine the stability of a unidirectional solidification problem in which a liquid, initially at the melting temperature, becomes solidified by heat transfer across a pressure-dependent thermal contact resistance to a plane mold. The contact pressure will be influenced by thermal distortion in response to the instantaneous temperature field in the solidi...

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have found many potential applications stemming from their small dimensions and marvellous electronic, mechanical, and thermal properties. One of the barriers for using CNTs as building blocks in nanoelectronics is the high contact resistance. This paper reviews recent progress on the research of contact resistance of CNTs. It starts with a preview of two basic contact c...