A heat transfer numerical analysis applied to rectangular

geometry.
Ortega Gonzalez Christopher.
Abstract. - This paper presents a numerical analysis of the Navier-Stokes equation for heat
diffusion applied to a rectangular geometry under the boundary conditions of state stable and
energy generation. This analysis involves three different mesh dimensions, which are used to
solve, by an explicit method, several differential equations that results in calculate the inner and
external temperatures of the rectangular geometry. With this analysis a temperature profile can
be obtained in function of the boundary conditions by mean of the solution of the equations early
mentioned.
Introduction. - The type of material is pretty important for a heat transfer analysis given their
ability for transmit the heat throughout the material thus, it becomes in a key parameter to
consider. Also, the selection of the type of material depends on the nature of the applications. For
instance, for heat diffusion is necessary a high heat conductivity to diffuse heat energy as much
as possible.
Materials with low thermal conductivity are undesirable for thermal management because they
may cause a rise of temperature in heat-generating devices as it was demonstrated by Y. Tomo et
al [1].
For this analysis it is required an explicit method which is employed to solve two significant
problems, namely, lid driven cavity and natural convection as proposed by M. Sheikholesman
[2]. Boundary conditions are introduced and applied in a math solver software. For each mesh
dimension there are different number of nodes and differential equations to solve, the precision
of the results depends on the number of nodes that the mesh contains, the greater number of nodes,
the higher precision of the obtained results.
Math solver software is very useful due to the number of equations that need to be solved, for this
reason, in this analysis, the hypothesis presented by F. Incropera et al [3] will be proved with this
explicit method.

Methodology. - In this analysis it is consider a two-dimensional conduction in steady state in a

rectangular dimension defined as: -a < x < a, -b < y < b. The following equation describes the
behaviour of the heat conduction [3]:

𝜕 2𝑇 𝜕 2𝑇 (1)
𝑘 ( 2 + 2 ) + 𝑞̇ = 0
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦

The Eq. 1 describes the whole geometry defined above. The temperature of the outline
is T=0ºC and the reference of the coordinated system is defined at the centre (x=0, y=0).
Mesh dimensions for this analysis are always given by (∆𝑥 = ∆𝑦) and for this case, it
will be a variable that could take any value.
It is required to solve the diffusion equation to obtain by a math solver software the
temperature of each node.
For the solution of the two-dimensional diffusion equation Eq. 1 with a generative term,
it is employed the method of finite differences which allows to obtain a conservation
equation appropriated for each one of the nodes with an unknown temperature.

Fig. 1.- Section of the rectangular region with meshing. Nodal array for node m, n [3].

Diffusion equation to use for the explicit method:

𝜕 2 𝑇 𝜕 2 𝑇 𝑞̇ (2)
+ + =0
𝜕𝑥 2 𝜕𝑦 2 𝑘

The Eq. 4 must be reduced to an approximate algebraic equation, by the finite difference
method. This equation corresponds only to the interior node case, as the temperatures at
the borders of the rectangular geometry are already known, the algebraic equation can be
used for all points of interest.

From the nodal arrangement there are temperature gradients for the X axis and Y axis that
can be expressed as a function of the nodal temperatures as follows:
𝜕𝑇 𝑇𝑚+1,𝑛 − 𝑇𝑚,𝑛 (3)
| 1 ≈
𝜕𝑥 𝑚+ ,𝑛 ∆𝑥
2

𝜕𝑇 𝑇𝑚,𝑛 − 𝑇𝑚−1,𝑛
| 1 ≈
𝜕𝑥 𝑚− ,𝑛 ∆𝑥
2

𝜕𝑇 𝑇𝑚,𝑛+1 − 𝑇𝑚,𝑛
| ≈
𝜕𝑦 𝑚,𝑛+1/2 ∆𝑦

𝜕𝑇 𝑇𝑚,𝑛 − 𝑇𝑚,𝑛−1
| ≈
𝜕𝑦 𝑚,𝑛−1/2 ∆𝑦

The variable of interest is 𝑇𝑚,𝑛 , from the previous expression:

𝑞̇ ∆𝑥 2 (4)
𝑇𝑚+1,𝑛 + 𝑇𝑚−1,𝑛 + 𝑇𝑚,𝑛+1 + 𝑇𝑚,𝑛−1 +
𝑇𝑚,𝑛 = 𝑘
4
To complete the analysis, the following values were considered as listed in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Parameter values that held constant for the solution of the diffusion equation.

Item Value Units

Mesh dimension 1 (∆𝑥 = ∆𝑦) 0.2 m
Mesh dimension 2 (∆𝑥 = ∆𝑦) 0.1 m
Mesh dimension 3 (∆𝑥 = ∆𝑦) 0.05 m
Thermal conductivity for 𝑘 = 15.1 𝑊
stainless Steel AISI 302 𝑚𝐾
Geometry dimensions b*=2, a*=1 m

Results and discussion.

45

40

35
Temperature [°C]

30

25

20

15

10

0
2 1,6 1,2 0,8 0,4 0 -0,4 -0,8 -1,2 -1,6 -2
Y axis position.[m]

Temperatura (x=0, y) Temperatura (x=.4, y)

Fig. 2 Plot of Temperature variation vs position at Y axis.

Figure 2 represents the behaviour of the temperature on each node throughout the Y axis
from a mesh dimension of ∆𝑥 = ∆𝑦= 0.2 mm. Note that there are two curves, the first
one is located at X=0 m and the second one at X=0.4 m. As it is shown there are a little
difference between these curves, as it is observed the temperature depends on the position
of the node, clearly this is close to a parabolic behaviour that starts and ends in zero due
to the boundary conditions of T=0 °C and the heat generation at the centre of the curve.
This small difference between curves might be attributable to the reference position of
the respective nodes.
 45

40

35
Tíemperature [°C]

30

25

20

15

10

0
-1 -0,8 -0,6 -0,4 -0,2 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1
X axis position [m]
Temperatura (x, y=0) Temperatura (x, y=.4)

Figure 3. Behaviour of Temperature variation vs position at X axis.

Note that the data in figure 3 are consistent with the data plotted the figure 2, with a barely
difference in both locations along the Y axis. This means that for the three different mesh
dimensions the trend in the described curves are rather compable which suggest that the
temperature depends on the position of the node.

There were obtained the same behaviour for the three different mesh dimensions, this
phenomenom is due to the boundary conditions applied to the geometry, Since the
temperature at the boundaries is 0 ° C, the highest temperature will be found in the centre
of the geometry.

Conclusions. - With this analysis the hypothesis raised by F. Incropera et al [3] is verified.
The behaviour of the temperature profile will not be the same in every case that heat
generation appears. This profile is defined as a function of the boundary conditions,
that is why there will not be exactly the same temperatura profiles for all the cases that
presents heat generation. If there exist the same boundary conditions, the temperatura
profile will be the same for every mesh dimensions. For a bigger number of nodes it
will be obtained more exact values for each node.

Acknowledgements. - Dr. Victor Alfonso Ramírez Elias provided me with with very valuable
help with the writting of this paper. I would like to express my great appreciation to Dr. Francisco
Elizalde Blancas for supporting me with my doubts and my failures at the time of the numerical
solution.
References
[1] Y. Tomo et al., “Thermal conductivity measurement of solid materials using an ‘ITX’
method–A pilot study using DNA solid films,” International Journal of Heat and Mass
 Transfer, vol. 176, p. 121501, Sep. 2021, doi:
10.1016/J.IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2021.121501.

[2] M. Sheikholeslami, “Detailed Explanation of Control Volume-based Finite Element

Method,” Application of Control Volume Based Finite Element Method (CVFEM) for
Nanofluid Flow and Heat Transfer, pp. 1–13, Jan. 2019, doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-
814152-6.00001-1.

[3] “Fundamentals of Heat Transfer: F. Incropera and D. Dewitt Wiley 1981. £22.15,”
Applied Ocean Research, vol. 5, no. 1, p. 55, Jan. 1983, doi: 10.1016/0141-
1187(83)90063-9.