Let's summarize the mathematical model before we

look at how to solve it numerically using

the finite element Our mathematical model consists of governing equation
and boundary conditions.
We'll take a look at the governing equation first,
and then we'll take a look at the boundary conditions.
The governing equation is that, as we saw in my derivation of the equation.
And from the derivation, we know that that term represents the net heat
flow through the faces of an infinitesimal control volume.
That is a vanishingly small control volume.
And that term represents a heat generation within the control volume.
And well, these terms are in per unit volume,
and they have to add up to 0 for energy conservation.
And they are defined, and this equation is
defined, from x equal to 0 to x equal to L.
That's because our bar is of length L.
And we need to put boundary conditions at the edges of the domain.
So this is called the domain.
When we're going to answers, we first find the domain
by drawing the geometry.
But this is what we're specifying when draw
the geometry for a lot of problems.
The boundary conditions, first let's take a look
at the left boundary condition.
So we say that at the left boundary we know the temperature at some value T
sub 0.
So that's the value at that face.
And at the right face, we have the heat flow per unit area.
That's a heat flow per unit area.
So that's the boundary condition at the right face, and we know that value.
And I should make it clear that this is heat flow per unit area.
It's called heat flux.
Earlier, I used q for heat flow, and now I'm using it for heat flux.
My bad, bad notation.
So you got to be careful even there.
What we're talking about is heat flow, it's a heat flow per unit area.
In this case, it's a heat flow per unit area.
And that's related to the temperature gradient at the right boundary
through the Fourier's law.
So essentially what we have here is the temperature gradient at this boundary.
So we have the temperature here, and we have the temperature gradient here.
And the two major kinds of boundary conditions you have are,
you know the value or you know the gradient of the value.
So this mimics both the major types of boundary conditions.
Governing equation plus boundary conditions
is called a boundary value problem.
So let me write that down because it's a very important idea.
So this is called a boundary value problem.
It's governing equation, or governing equations,
defined in a domain and boundary conditions defined
at the edges of the domain.
So to complete the boundary value specification,
we need the governing equation.
We need the domain, which, in the tool, we'll
be specifying in the geometry step.
And then we need boundary conditions at the edges of the domain.
The exact solution to this problem is straightforward.
It's a simple linear differential equation,
and I presume you've seen it while studying calculus.
So let's think about how to solve this using a finite element method in order
to understand the finite element method.
That's what I'm going to talk about next.