THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Rachid Chadouli

,

Smain Benyamina

,

Salem Merabti

,

Abdellah Boudina

STATISTICAL MODELLING AND ANOVA ANALYSIS OF THERMAL CONTACT RESISTANCE IN SOLID-SOLID INTERFACES

ABSTRACT
Thermal contact resistance (TCR) limits interfacial heat transfer in solid-solid junctions and depends on several parameters, including surface condition and the thermophysical properties of the contacting materials. This study quantitatively evaluates the influence of material pairing (steel/steel, steel/copper, steel/nickel) and contact surface area (five levels: 0.05-0.8 mm²) on TCR and heat flux using a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with interaction (n = 45). The results indicate that the contact surface area is the dominant factor affecting TCR (p < 0.001; 89.2% of the total variance), whereas the material type constitutes the primary factor governing heat flux (p < 0.001). A robust linear regression model (R² = 0.96) further confirms these trends. These findings provide a statistically sound framework for the optimization of thermal interfaces in power electronics applications, highlighting the superior performance of the steel/copper material pair.
KEYWORDS
Thermal contact resistance (TCR), Contact surface area, Two-way ANOVA, Heat flux and Statistical modeling
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2026-01-22
PAPER REVISED: 2026-03-09
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2026-04-02
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2026-05-17
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI260122057C
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Statistical modelling and ANOVA analysis of thermal contact resistance in solid-solid interfaces

© 2026 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence