General Response Modes of Cylindrical Thermal Contact Conductance to Bidirectional Heat Flux and Temperature Variations

Cylindrical joints serve as critical pathways for heat flow in various applications, including heat pipes, electronic devices, and fin-tube heat exchangers. Despite their significance, research has predominantly focused on flat joints, with limited investigation into cylindrical joints, especially on how cylindrical thermal contact conductance (TCC) changes in response to temperature and heat flux, a feature distinctive to cylindrical joints. This study provides a comprehensive theoretical and numerical investigation of cylindrical TCC behavior across various material combinations and heat flux directions. We identified three response modes for outward heat flux and six for inward heat flux, classified by the relative thermal expansion coefficients and heat flux direction. Notably, under inward heat flux, we discovered a previously unreported phenomenon: two possible contact states occurring at identical interfacial temperature, heat flux, and material conditions, with TCC values differing by more than an order of magnitude. The study covers a wide range of conditions (temperatures from 293 K to 1400 K and heat fluxes from 104 to 106 W/m2), confirming that the identified response patterns are broadly applicable and governed by general principles rather than specific material properties or geometric parameters. These findings provide new insights into cylindrical joint behavior and offer valuable guidelines for optimizing the design and performance of thermal systems involving cylindrical interfaces.