Abstract: The spectral element method for nonlinear thermomechanical coupling problems with high temperature gradient and thermal contact resistance is proposed here, and temperature-dependent thermal conductivity, elasticity modulus, Poisson’s ratio and thermal expansion coefficient, as well as the interface stress related thermal contact resistance are considered. The interpolation function of spectral element method is based on the unevenly spaced Lobatto points or Chebyshev points of the second kind. The spectral element method keeps both the high accuracy of spectral method and the flexibility of finite element method. Numerical results show that, the present spectral element method could solve the nonlinear thermomechanical coupling problems with high temperature gradient and thermal contact resistance with high accuracy and efficiency. Not only the convergency rate is larger than traditional finite element method, but also employ less degree of freedom and computational time to obtain results with higher accuracy, and has broad application potential in practical engineering thermomechanical coupling problems.