Research on the hysteresis effect of thermal contact resistances on the fractal surface

The repeated assembly of components and variations in external load change can be viewed as subjecting the contact surfaces to multiple cycles of loading and unloading. This results in the change of contact properties and subsequently affecting the thermal contact resistance (TCR) and the temperature field distribution. In this paper, TCR under multiple loading cycles is studied based on the hysteresis effect and the fractal theory. Firstly, a fractal model to accurately characterize the microstructure is used to construct the contact surface. Next, the finite element method (FEM) is used to analyze the change of contact in a single asperity under multiple loading cycles Then, based on the surface model and the FEM analysis, the variation in the overall contact area under repeated loading can be obtained. Finally, TCR based on the identified contact area is calculated and the effects of different loads and surface topography on TCR during repeated loading cycles are analyzed.