Determination of thermal contact conductance of metal tabs for battery ultrasonic welding process

A new experimental apparatus and data analysis algorithm were used to determine the thermal contact conductance between 0.2-mm-thick pure aluminum battery tabs as a function of contact pressure from 3.6 to 14.4 MPa. Specimens were sandwiched between one optically transparent and one infrared (IR) transparent glass windows, and heated up from one side by an intense short pulse of flash light. The temperature on the other side was measured by an IR camera. In order to determine the thermal contact conductance, two experiment configurations having different numbers of Al specimen layers were used. Numerical heat conduction simulations showed that the thermal contact conductance strongly depended on the ratio of the maximum temperature rise between the two configurations. Moreover, this ratio was not sensitive to the uncertainties of other thermal properties. Through the simulation results, a simple correlation between the gap conductance and the ratio was established. Therefore, once the ratio of the temperature rise between two configurations would be experimentally measured, the thermal contact conductance could be readily determined from the correlation. The new method was fast and robust. Most importantly, the data analysis algorithm improved the measurement accuracy by considerably reducing the uncertainties associated with the thermophysical properties of materials and measurement system.