ABSTRACT
Case 1: Two Metals in Contact In a bimetallic contact, the maximum temperature developed within an a-spot would be expected to occur within the material with the larger electrical resistivity, rather than at the interface between the two metals. However, simple arguments given in Appendix B show that the deviation of the interfacial temperature from the maximum temperature is not expected to be large and that the maximum temperature generally occurs in the immediate vicinity of the physical interface even when the resistivities of the contacting materials
differ significantly. For all practical purposes, the maximum temperature may thus be considered to occur at the physical interface between the two materials. This situation is descriptive of bimetallic contacts involving good electrical conductors such as aluminum, copper, brasses, copper bronzes etc, but is generally inapplicable to interfaces in which highly dissimilar materials, such as copper and graphite, are used.
