######################################### # CoCoE: Contact Conductance Estimator #
# Version 0.2 beta # # Author: Ido Perelmutter # # Email: ido50@yahoo.com # # Web: http://cocoe.sourceforge.net #
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What is CoCoE?
Contact conductance is a very important field in the science of heat transfer. In any physical system (Either mechanical, electrical, etc.) that involves a component of heat transfer through contacting surfaces, a knowledge of the conductance (i.e. ability to conduct electricity) between the contacting surfaces is neccessary and important. In many cases, a system's performance is directly reliant on contact conductance.
The engineering literature containes many articles regarding contact conductance between certain bodies. These articles contain data regarding specific situations of contact characteristics, i.e. the materials in contact, the contact pressure, the surface finish, etc.
The problem is that no centralized source of general data regarding contact conductance exists in professional literature. Information is spread across many journals, books, etc., and companies are forced to use possibly irrelavent, uncredible data.
As a final project for my senior year at university (Studying Mechanical Engineering in Tel-Aviv University, Israel), I have been assigned to write a program that estimates the conductance between two surfaces in contact. Since no general mathematical procedure for calculating contact conductance exists, my job was to gather as much data as possible from the professional literature, regarding said topic, and create a centralized database of credible, proven values of contact conductance for different
CoCoE is the program I have created. It is a simple Perl program with a Gtk+ and/or Tk interface and an SQLite2 database. The program guides the user through a series of dialogs, in which the user must provide information about his system. When all dialogs are finished, the program gathers the contact conductance (Or resistance) of this system (Or a close system) as a function of the contact pressure from the database, calculates the value of the function for the given pressure and displays the final result.
What is the current state of CoCoE?
This is the second release of CoCoE. Right now, there are but a few entries in the database. The program is not yet finished, but works (AFAIK). You can try the program if you want to get a feeling of how CoCoE is going to be.
On which operating systems will CoCoE run?
Any OS that runs the perl interpreter. I will constantly provide the Perl sources and standalone GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows binaries, so the program can be executed without the need to install perl first.
Under which license is CoCoE distributed?
Under the GNU General Public License, version 2, as given in the LICENSE file. CoCoE is free software!
How do I run CoCoE?
- If you are using the Microsoft Windows binary, simply double click on the "cocoe.exe" executable file.
- If you are using the GNU/Linux binary, invoke "./cocoe" from the directory where the program resides.
- If you are using the Perl sources, invoke "perl cocoe.pl" from the directory where the program resides. Please not that the following CPAN modules must be installed: DBI, DBD::SQLite2, Tk.
Whether using 1, 2 or 3, please note that the database file ("cocoe_db") must be in the same directory where the program resides.
How can I help?
If you find any bugs in CoCoE, please submit them using the bug report system on the project page (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/cocoe), or contact me via Email. Once a stable release is made, I will ask for the help of engineers and programmers to join the development, in order to keep a fast development rate. But 'till then, this is a personal project.
Changelog?
# 0.1 alpha, 17/05/2006
First public release
# 0.2 beta, 23/05/2006
+ Added the ability to select unit systems, where appropriate.
+ Added units to the final result window.
* 'Go Back' button now works.
* 'Go Back' is now replaced with 'Exit' on the first window (Material A).
+ Added a 'Start Over' button to the final result window.
* Fixed wrong resistance function for Stainless on the database.
+ Added some entries to the database.
* Added required dll files to the win32 release, so now it works.