Thermal conductance of metallic interface in vacuum

In most heat transfer applications, the deposited heat is transferred by any of the following classical methods: conduction, convection, radiation, or any combinations of these three. Depending on how critical the nature is of the designed equipment, the response time must be short enough in order to safeguard the proper performance of the devices. For instance, currently at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), various hardware equipment are being designed to intercept or to stop intense radiation beams induced by insertion devices such as wiggler and undulators. Due to the nature of some of these designs, the deposited high flux thermal load must be transferred across unbonded contact surfaces. Since any miscalculation would result in the disintegration of exposed material and therefore cause substantial problems, a true actual conductance measurement of the material in question is highly desirable. In the following three sections, background summary, the method of measurement, and the obtained results are discussed