TRANSIENT TEMPERATURE RISE AT SURFACE DUE TO ARBITRARY CONTACTS ON HALF-SPACES

Approximate analytical methods have been developed to predict the transient temperature rise at surface points interior or exterior to arbitrarily-shaped contacts with uniform heat flux on a homogeneous half-space. The solution for points interior to the contact is based on subdivision into triangular surface elements. For points exterior an approximate solution is derived by integrating across a contact of arbitrary shape. The resultant expressions are easily implemented on a microcomputer and can be used to describe the transient thermal behaviour of large systems of contacts.