Heat Transfer

Prof. Ganesh Viswanathan

Department of Chemical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

Lecture – 15
Transient analyses: Semi-infinite case

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

All along we had looked at boundary value systems, where you have specific
temperatures or specific fluxes specified at the boundaries. We shall next consider
conduction in semi-infinite system, it is a much more detail today. Consider a surface
which extends all the way up to infinity in one direction (see snapshot). How to
characterize the transient conduction in semi-infinite system?

Assume temperature of the surface is Ts, and initial temperature Ti. For example, if one
wants to consider conduction in a big lake with temperature maintained at one end.
Another example: Some swimming pools are maintained at 25oC even during winter
season by placing heaters in appropriate locations. When there is no swimming, what is
the rate at which resting water in the swimming pool is heated to achieve (and maintain)
a set-point temperature? A over-simplified case of this could be conduction in a semi-
infinite system where one end is maintained at a certain temperature.

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What transport processes are occurring here? Conduction, assuming no heat generation
at any location, is the only process. One end is maintained at temperature Ts. So, what is
the model?

(Refer Slide Time: 03:54).

Model and the boundary and initial conditions are in the snapshot above.

Because it is an infinite system, you could expect that the amount of heat that is
transferred from one end of the surface is not penetrated sufficiently enough to the other
end. Therefore, at the other end, that is, T (x → ∞) = Ti . This problem is clearly not a

bounded problem. Therefore, a slightly different method is used: the similarity

transformation or similarity variable method.

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(Refer Slide Time: 05:56).

Details of the method are in the article cited in the snapshot. One could use an intuitive
argument as to why that should be the similarity variable.

When x → ∞ is T=Ti at all times. Thus, somehow the process occurring in the x-
direction, and time are related. As a result the position and time can related to obtain a
single variable called the “similarity variable” that captures both as mentioned in the
snapshot above. Denominator gives characteristic distance to which energy has traveled
due to conduction. Since there is no clear length scale in that direction, this characteristic
distance can be used as a length scale in x-dir. Position scaled with this characteristic
distance is the similarity variable.

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 (Refer Slide Time: 10:24)

By chain rule, the model equation can be transformed in terms of the similarity variable
(see snapshot). The number of independent variables has to been reduced to 1. What are
the boundary condition?

(Refer Slide Time: 14:20).

Boundary conditions and the initial conditions in terms of the similarity variable are in
snapshot above. Note that one boundary condition and the initial condition of the original
problem is now reduced to a single boundary condition in the similarity variable domain.

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 (Refer Slide Time: 15:52)

(Refer Slide Time: 17:08)

Integrate and substitute the boundary conditions as shown in the snapshots above.

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(Refer Slide Time: 18:25).

The solution of the model equation is in terms of the error function (see snapshot above),
a well-characterized function. Next we can estimate the heat transfer rate at x=0.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:05)

The heat transport rate is as that given in the snapshot above.