Ch-4: Transient Heat Conduction

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 Transient Heat Conduction

 Many heat transfer problems are Time Dependent

 Changes in operating conditions in a system cause temperature variation

with time, as well as location within a system, until a new steady state
(Thermal Equilibrium) is obtained.

 In this chapter we will develop procedures for determining the Time

Dependence of the temperature distribution

 Real problems may include finite and semi-infinite solids, or complex

geometries, as well as two and three dimensional conduction

 Solution techniques involve the Lumped Capacitance Method, Exact and

Approximate Solutions, and Finite Difference Methods

 We will focus on the Lumped Capacitance Method, which can be used for
solids within which Temperature Gradients are negligible

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

 Inheat transfer analysis, some bodies are essentially Isothermal and can be
treated as a “Lump” system
 Temperature of such bodies can be taken to be a function of time only, T(t)
o Measurements indicate that the temperature of the copper ball coming out of oven
changes with time, but it does not change much with position at any given time

o Temp. distribution within the roast is not even close to being uniform

⇒ A small copper ball can be modeled as a lumped system, but a roast beef cannot

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

 An energy balance of an isothermal solid for the time interval dt can be
expressed as:

T∞ > T

-
⇒

Integrating from t = 0 (at which T=Ti) to t at

which T = T(t) :
-
⇒

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

b is a positive quantity whose dimension is
(time)-1, and is called the Time Constant

o Eq. enables us to determine the temperature T(t) of a body at time t, or alternatively,

the time t required for the temperature to reach a specified value
o temperature of a body approaches the ambient temperature T ∞ exponentially
o temperature of the body changes rapidly at the
beginning, but rather slowly later on

o Large value of b indicates that body approaches

the ambient temperature in a short time
o b is proportional to the As, but inversely
proportional to the mCp

⇒ it takes longer to heat or cool a larger mass,

especially when it has a large specific heat

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Rate of Convection Heat Transfer
 Rate of Convection Heat Transfer at time t between the body and the ambient
can be determined from Newton’s law of cooling

 Total heat transfer between the body and the ambient over the time interval 0 to t
is simply the change in the energy content of the body

 Maximum Heat Transfer between the body and its surroundings (when the body
reaches T ∞)

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Validity of Lumped Capacitance Method
 Needa suitable criterion to determine validity of method. Must relate relative
magnitudes of temperature drop in the solid to the temperature difference
between surface and fluid
Tsolid ( due to conduction) ( L / kA) Rcond hL
    Bi
Tsolid / liquid( due to convection) (1 / hA) Rconv k

⇒
Biot Number provides a measure of the temperature
drop in the solid relative to the temperature difference
between the solid’s surface and the fluid

 Lumped system analysis assumes a uniform temperature

distribution throughout the body, which is true only when the
thermal resistance of the body Mechanical
to heat conduction is zero
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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Validity of Lumped Capacitance Method
 smaller the Bi number, the more accurate the lumped system analysis
 lumped capacitance method is valid when
hL when Bi < 0.1, the variation of temperature with location within the
Bi  c  0.1 body will be slight and can reasonably be approximated as being
k uniform.

Lc = half-thickness L for a plane wall of thickness 2L

= ro/2 for a long cylinder
= ro/3 for a sphere

Convection Coefficient h is high and k is low, large

temperature differences occur between the inner
and outer regions of a large solid

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Validity of Lumped Capacitance Method – contd--

 Transient
temperature distributions for different Biot numbers in a plane wall
symmetrically cooled by convection

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Validity of Lumped Capacitance Method

exponent of Eq. may be expressed as

hAs t ht hLc k t hLc t

   ⇒
Vc cLc k c Lc
2
k L2c
Fo = Fourier number → dimensionless time, which, with the Biot number →
characterizes transient conduction problems
Fourier number signifies the degree of penetration of heating or cooling effect
through a solid

 T  T
⇒   exp Bi  Fo
i Ti  T
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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Instantaneous Heat Flow Rate

Taking derivative w.r.t time

⇒ τ → t (time)
t → T (Temperature)

⇒
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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Total Heat Flow Rate

⇒
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 Transient Heat Conduction

Example
An aluminium alloy plate of 400 mm × 400 mm × 4 mm is suddenly
quenched into liquid oxygen at -183 oC. Determine the time required for
the plate to reach a temperature of -70 oC. Assume h = 20000 kJ/m2.hr.oC

Example
A 15 mm diameter mild steel sphere (k = 42 W/m oC) is exposed to cooling
airflow at 20 oC resulting in the convection coefficient h = 120 W/m2. oC.
Deermine the following:
1. Time required to cool the sphere from 550 oC to 90 oC.
2. Instantaneous heat transfer rate 2 min after the start of cooling
3. Total energy transferred from the sphere during the first 2 minutes
For mild steel take: ρ = 7850 kg/m3, cp =Dept.
Mechanical Engineering
475 J/kg oC, and α = 0.045 m213/h
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 Transient Heat Conduction

Lumped System Analysis

Example

Predicting the Time of Death

A person is found dead at 5 PM in a room whose temperature

is 20°C. The temperature of the body is measured to be 25°C
when found, and the heat transfer coefficient is estimated to
be h = 8 W/m2·°C. Modeling the body as a 30-cm-diameter,
1.70-m-long cylinder, estimate the time of death of that
person

water at the average temperature of (37 + 25)/2 = 31°C;

k 0.617 W/m·°C, ρ = 996 kg/m3, and Cp = 4178 J/kg · °C

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Transient Heat Conduction in Large Plane Walls, Long

Cylinders, and Spheres with Spatial Effects
 In many Transient Heat Transfer problems the Biot Number is larger than 0.1,
and lumped system can not be assumed
 In these cases temperature within the body changes appreciably from point to
point as well as with time
 Itis constructive to first consider the variation of temperature with time and
position in 1-D problems of rudimentary configurations such as a large plane
wall, a long cylinder, and a sphere.

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Transient Heat Conduction in Large Plane Walls, Long

Cylinders, and Spheres with Spatial Effects
A large Plane Wall
 A plane wall of thickness 2L
 Initially at a uniform temperature of Ti
 At time t = 0, wall is immersed in a fluid at
temperature T
 Constant heat transfer coefficient h
 Height and width of wall are large relative to its
thickness → 1-D approximation is valid
 Constant thermophysical properties
 No heat generation
 There is thermal symmetry about the mid-plane passing through x = 0

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Transient Heat Conduction in Large Plane Walls, Long

Cylinders, and Spheres with Spatial Effects
A large Plane Wall – contd--
 One-dimensional transient heat conduction equation
problem (0 ≤ x ≤ L):

Differential equation:

Boundary conditions:

Initial condition:

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Transient Heat Conduction in Large Plane Walls, Long

Cylinders, and Spheres with Spatial Effects
Approximate Analytical and Graphical Solutions
 Solution obtained after rigorous mathematical analysis indicate that

 solution involves parameters x, L, t, k, , h, Ti, andT∞, which are too many to

make any graphical presentation of the results practical
 to reduce the number of parameters, we non-dimensionalize the problem by
defining the following dimensionless quantities:

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Transient Heat Conduction in Large Plane Walls, Long

Cylinders, and Spheres with Spatial Effects
Approximate Analytical and Graphical Solutions

 dimensionless quantities defined above for a plane wall can also be used for a
cylinder or sphere by replacing the space variable x by r and the half-thickness
L by the outer radius ro
 Characteristic Length in the definition of the Biot number is:
half-thickness L for Plane Wall
radius ro for the Long Cylinder and Sphere

 For Eq. charts have been prepared for a large plane

wall, long cylinder, and sphere by M. P. Heisler in 1947
and are called Heisler charts → for τ > 0.2

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 Transient Heat Conduction

Transient Heat Conduction in Large Plane Walls, Long

Cylinders, and Spheres with Spatial Effects
Heisler Charts

There are Three Charts associated with each geometry:

– the temperature T0 at the center of the geometry at a given time t
– the temperature at other locations at the same time in terms of T0
– the total amount of heat transfer up to the time t

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Transient Heat Conduction
Heisler Charts

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Transient Heat Conduction
Heisler Charts

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Transient Heat Conduction
Heisler Charts

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Example
A 60 mm thick large steel plate (k = 42.6 W/m. C, α = 0.043 m2/hr), initially at 440 oC
is suddenly exposed on both sides to an environment with convective heat
transfer coefficient 235 W/m2 oC and temperature 50 oC. Determine the center line
temperature, and temperature inside the plate 15 mm from the mid-plan after 4.3
minutes.

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 Steady State Heat Conduction

Practice Problems:

Book: Yunus Cengel 2nd Ed.

 Example: 4.1,4.2, 4.4, 4.5,

 Problems: 4.1C to 4.11C,4.14, 4.15E, 4.17, 4.19E, 4.22, 4.31C, 4.36, 4.38,
4.42, 4.45, 4.47, 4.48, 4.54, 4.55E, 4.57,

 All Problems which were solved in the class

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