Thermal gap conductance at low contact pressures (<1 MPa): Effect of gold plating and plating thickness

Misra, Prashant and Nagaraju, J (2010) Thermal gap conductance at low contact pressures (<1 MPa): Effect of gold plating and plating thickness. In: International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 53 (23-24). pp. 5373-5379.

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Abstract

Thermal contact conductance (TCC) measurements are made on bare and gold plated (<= 0.5 mu m) oxygen free high conductivity (OFHC) Cu and brass contacts in vacuum, nitrogen, and argon environments. It is observed that the TCC in gaseous environment is significantly higher than that in vacuum due to the enhanced thermal gap conductance. It is found that for a given contact load and gas pressure, the thermal gap conductance for bare OFHC Cu contacts is higher than that for gold plated contacts. It is due to the difference in the molecular weights of copper and gold, which influences the exchange of kinetic energy between the gas molecules and contact surfaces. Furthermore, the gap conductance is found to increase with increasing thickness of gold plating. Topography measurements and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of contact surfaces revealed that surfaces become smoother with increasing gold plating thickness, thus resulting in smaller gaps and consequently higher gap conductance. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier Science.
Keywords:	Thermal gap conductance; OFHC Cu; Brass; Thin gold plating.
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Instrumentation Appiled Physics
Date Deposited:	21 Oct 2010 04:53
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2010 04:53
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/33273

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