Heat flow across the interface of solid bodies in
contact is an important aspect in several engineering applications.
This work presents a finite element model for the
analysis of thermal contact, which takes into account the
effect of contact pressure and gap dimension in the heat
flow across the interface between two bodies. Additionally,
the frictional heat generation is also addressed, which
is dictated by the contact forces predicted by the mechanical
problem. The frictional contact problem and thermal
problem are formulated in the frame of the finite element
method. A new law is proposed to define the interfacial heat
transfer coefficient (IHTC) as a function of the contact pressure
and gap distance, enabling a smooth transition between
two contact status (gap and contact). The staggered scheme
used as coupling strategy to solve the thermomechanical
problem is briefly presented. Four numerical examples are presented to validate the finite element model and highlight
the importance of the proposed law on the predicted
temperature.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial
support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
(FCT) under the project PTDC/EMS-TEC/1805/2012 and by
FEDER funds through the program COMPETE Programa Operacional
Factores de Competitividade, under the project CENTRO-07-0224-
FEDER-002001 (MT4MOBI). The second author is also grateful to the
FCT for the postdoctoral grant SFRH/BPD/101334/2014. The authors
would like to thank Prof. A. Andrade-Campos for helpful contributions
on the development of the finite element code presented in this work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio