Polymeric fluidic thermal interface materials (TIMs) are commonly utilized to reduce the thermal resistance between two solid surfaces in microelectronics. When filling TIMs between the solid surfaces, an amount of air is entrapped between the liquid and solid surfaces, resulting in a thermal contact resistance (R-c) arising at the liquid-solid interface. R-c plays an important role on the thin TIMs with high thermal conductivity, while analytical models for R-c at liquid-solid interface are scarce. Based on former researches, this paper developed an improved predictive model through conducting the wettability analysis at the interface. The model expresses R-c as a function of topography of solid surface, wettability of the liquid on rough surface, mechanics of contact at the interface, and thermal parameters of the contacting bodies. R-c at the TIM-aluminium interface was measured for comparison with the model results. The comparison shows that the model results matches to experimental data within 14.3% when the applied pressure is 0.1 MPa, and the deviations are still within the error bars at higher pressure. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.