Anisotropic heat conduction across an interface crack/defect filled with a thin interstitial medium

The present work investigates the heat conduction across an interface crack/defect filled with a thin-layer of interstitial medium between dissimilar anisotropic materials. The problem is simulated using two independent approaches in the boundary element method. One is to consider the presence of a thin layer of an isotropic medium, while the other is to adopt a gap conductance equation without considering the interstitial medium. Comparison of numerical results reveals that the gap conductance coefficient is independent of the material properties of adjoined materials that are believed to be involved. A simple, yet useful relation to give the gap conductance coefficient is presented in this paper.