9. Further Applications of Spreading Resistance Available to Purchase

In this chapter, we consider several special and unique applications where thermal spreading resistance theory plays a major role in transport phenomena; for example in sliding contacts of tribology applications, mass diffusion with and without chemical reaction, transport involving super-hydrophobic surfaces at low Peclet numbers, electronic microdevices where temperature-dependent thermal conductivity plays a major role, applications involving phase change such as freezing droplets on a surface, and finally thermal spreading in solid or hollow spheres for packed-bed applications. These are all applications where performance is controlled by thermal, mass, or viscous spreading principles. In Chapters 10–12, we will consider thermal contact resistance applications in great detail.