Lubrication by close-contact melting

This invited paper reviews the current research on close-contact melting heat transfer, and the relevance of this work to understanding and predicting melt lubrication. Contact melting and lubrication is a relatively complicated phenomenon, because it combines thin-film fluid mechanics with phase-change heat transfer and solid body mechanics. This research area emerged only recently, as a subfield at the interface between heat transfer and tribology. The paper covers the contact melting of crystalline substances with smooth or rough surfaces. The types of relative motion studied are sliding contact, the movement of a hot body through a melting medium, and the movement and melting of a solid inside a heated capsule. Applications range from the reduction of friction to the energy storage by change of phase, and the disposal of nuclear waste.

Duke Scholars

Author Adrian Bejan Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materia ...