Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 128 (2021) 290–297

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Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enganabound

Heat transfer for nonlinear boundary conditions involving radiation for

constant and temperature related thermal conductivity material using the
MWLS method
H.M. Zhou a,b,∗, G. Qin a, S.X. Jing a
a
School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, JiaoZuo, China
b
Postdoctoral innovation practice place of Guangdong Xinhuan Environmental Industry Group, ZhongShan,China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: The paper presented the heat transfer analysis for nonlinear boundary conditions involving radiation with con-
Heat transfer stant and temperature related thermal conductivity material. For the constant thermal conductivity, linearizing
MWLS method the fourth power of radiation item, solve the temperature distribution through the global iteration coupled with
Temperature related thermal conductivity
the meshless weighted least squares (MWLS) method. For the temperature related variable thermal conductivity,
Nonlinear boundary conditions
the Kirchhoff transformation is usually employed to transform the nonlinear heat transfer problem into the linear
Laplace’s equation. Through the two-step iteration method, the convection and radiation boundary are converted
into Dirichlet and Neumann boundary which is the easy-to-program linear condition after the transformation. In
the end, the effectiveness and accuracy of the method were illustrated by some numerical examples .

1. Introduction
Because of its excellent thermal properties, more and more re-
searchers pay close attention to some engineering application like en-
capsulation, cryogenics and electronic cooling about heat transfer prob-
lem. As far as we know that those simple geometries and linear heat
conduction problems can be solved by various analytical methods. How-
ever, the nonlinear heat transfer often occurs in most practical condi-
tions. The nonlinear features of heat transfer problems can be mainly di-
vided the following three groups [1]: one is nonlinear material, which
caused the nonlinear governing equation. i.e. temperature dependent
thermal properties; one is nonlinear boundary conditions due to heat
radiation, Robin boundary condition for temperature dependent heat
conductivity; the last is the coupled conductive and radiative heat trans-
fer problem.
Compared with constant materials properties, the thermal analysis is
vital for temperature related thermal conductivity materials which usu-
ally applied in the hot environment, like combustion engines and indus-
trial furnace. Because of the analytical solution for nonlinear features in
heat transfer problem is so difficult to obtain that some widely-used nu-
merical methods have been developed for analyzing these problems, for
instance, FDM [2], FEM [3,4] and BEM [1,5,6] .With the development of
numerical technique, more and more researchers had applied the mesh-
less methods [7–12] and the MFS [13] to nonlinear heat transfer prob-
lem. However, how to select the proper fictitious boundary was vital for
MFS. Some relevant meshless methods were also used to solve the con-
duction and radiation heat transfer problem [14–19]. In their methods,
via the Kirchhoff transformation the nonlinearity of the original gov-
erning equation may be eliminated [20]. In order to analyze the steady
and transient-state heat conduction problems, Fu et.al [21] compared
three boundary meshless methods aiming at FGMs. MILKA [22] used
FEM to solve heat conduction with radiative boundary. Tao [23] and
Gama [24] gave the exact solution of the one-dimensional heat equation
with radiative boundary condition. Mierzwiczak et.al [25] used SBM to
solve 2-D heat conduction with temperature-dependent heat conduc-
tivity for nonlinear boundary. Karageorghis and Lesnic [26] solved the
convection and radiation problem for temperature dependent thermal
conductivity using MFS with domain decomposition.
Heat conduction and radiation transfer between the boundary and
the environment is necessary in many applications, like burner and com-
bustion chambers. For this compound heat transfer problem, it need
to solve the radiative transfer equation and the energy equation at the
same time. Bouzgarrou et.al [27] analyzed the transient conduction-
radiation heat transfer problem in 2D irregular geometries using the
Control Volume-Lattice Boltzmann Method. Xi et.al [28] presented a
boundary collocation scheme for transient thermal analysis for large-
size-ratio functionally graded materials (FGMs) with heat source. Qu
et.al [29] developed a hybrid numerical method for three-dimensional
(3D) heat conduction in FGMs. Zhang et.al [30] proposed the fractional
Kelvin-Voigt model for circumferential guided waves in a viscoelastic

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhm_1979@163.com (H.M. Zhou).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enganabound.2021.04.013
Received 4 January 2021; Received in revised form 14 April 2021; Accepted 16 April 2021
Available online 27 April 2021
0955-7997/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H.M. Zhou, G. Qin and S.X. Jing Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 128 (2021) 290–297

FGM hollow cylinder. Amiri et.al [31] presented the blocked-off method 2.2. Heat transfer problem for constant thermal conductivity
for the irregular geometries to solve the steady-state coupled radiative
and conductive problem in an anisotropic material. Das et.al [32] dealt The differential equation is assumed to be linear for constant ther-
with the inverse problem of transient conduction-radiation transfer, mal conductivity, while the nonlinear of boundary conditions will occur
which involving lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), the finite volume only due to the mixed boundary condition involving radiation. So the
method (FVM) and the genetic algorithm (GA). Zhang et.al [33] em- heat transfer equation without interior heat resource and its boundary
ployed natural element method (NEM) for solving radiative heat transfer condition can be obtained:
problem. Hong and Wu [34], Sun et.al [35] used radial basis functions ( )
(RBF) for radiative heat transfer problem. 𝑘0 ∇2 𝑇 𝑥 = 0 𝑥∈Ω (5)
The MWLS method was first presented by Liu et al. [36] to solve
steady-state and transient-state heat conduction problems for homoge- ( )
𝑇 𝑥 = 𝑇0 𝑥 ∈ Γ1 (6)
neous material. For the first time our team extended this method to
the steady-state [37] and transient-state [38] heat conduction prob- ( )
𝜕𝑇 𝑥 𝑞0
lem for those FGM object. Aimed at the complex and irregular model, =− 𝑥 ∈ Γ2 (7)
we handled it united with modeling by multi-color distance field [39]. 𝜕𝑛 𝑘0
Temperature-dependent FGM geometries was also extended to solve for ( )
𝜕𝑇 𝑥 ℎ[ ( ) ] 𝜎𝜀 [ 4 ( ) ]
heat conduction problem with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary con- + 𝑇 𝑥 − 𝑇𝑓 + 𝑇 𝑥 − 𝑇𝑠4 = 0 𝑥 ∈ Γ3 (8)
𝜕𝑛 𝑘0 𝑘0
ditions [40]. The contribution of this study is to extend this analysis
to the mixed boundary condition involving radiation. In this paper, the Where 𝑇 (𝒙) is the unknown temperature variable on a fixed domain
Kirchhoff transformation was used to remove the nonlinear of hear con- Ω that surrounded by a closed boundary 𝛤 = 𝛤1 + 𝛤2 + 𝛤3 . The vari-
duction equation combined with the temperature related conductivity able 𝒙 denotes the physical dimensions expressed in Cartesian coor-
material, then MWLS method is used to solve the linear governing equa- dinates, x: (x,y) for 2D, (x,y,z) for 3D. n represents the outward sur-
tion. The nonlinear of boundary condition can be solved through the face normal. T0 and q0 represented the prescribed temperature and
two-step iteration method. The method is meshless, integration-free and flux, respectively. The parameters h, k0 , ɛ are the heat transfer coef-
high convergence rate method. The outline of this paper was divided as ficient, constant thermal conductivity and radiation interchange factor,
follows: In Section 2, we gave the MWLS formulation and its numerical respectively.Tf is the temperature of fluid exchanging heat with bound-
implementation. In Section 3, through several examples the presented ary 𝛤3 . 𝜎 = 5.667 × 10−8 W/m2 K4 is Stefan-Boltzmann constant. Ts is the
method was implemented and the results were illuminated and clarified. environment temperature interchanging radiation with boundary 𝛤3 .
Some conclusions were drawn in the last section. The radiation item of Eq. (8) contains the fourth power of the un-
determined variable. In order to linearize the nonlinear boundary, as-
2. The MWLS formulation and its numerical implementation suming an initial temperature value, then set 𝑇 4 (𝒙) = (𝑇 ∗ )3 𝑇 (𝑥), update
the temperature value using the previous iteration step. In view of the
2.1. The moving least-square approximation above assumption, Eq. (8) can be rewritten as:
( ) [ ] [ ]
An approximate function uh (x) is constructed to approach the un- 𝜕𝑇 𝑥 ℎ 𝜎𝜀 ( ∗ )3 ( ) ℎ 𝜎𝜀 4
known field variable u(x) through the Moving Least-square (MLS) ap- + + 𝑇 𝑇 𝑥 − 𝑇𝑓 + 𝑇𝑠 = 0 𝑥 ∈ Γ3 (9)
𝜕𝑛 𝑘0 𝑘0 𝑘0 𝑘0
proximation. The approximate function employs a shape function SI (x)
to interpolate the domain by function values uI at nodes I. It is explained
using the following equation: ℎ 𝜎𝜀 ∗ 3
ℎ∗ = + (𝑇 )
𝑘0 𝑘0
𝑢(𝒙) ≈ 𝑢ℎ (𝒙) = 𝑺 𝐼 (𝒙)𝑢𝐼 = 𝒃𝑇 (𝒙)𝒂(𝒙) (1)
ℎ 𝜎𝜀 4
𝑇𝑓∗ = 𝑇 + 𝑇 (10)
Where bT (x)represents the basis function.bT (x) = {1, x, y, x2 ,xy, y2 } 𝑘0 𝑓 𝑘0 𝑠
is chosen in the Section 3; a(x)denotes the undetermined coefficient.
Substituting Eq. (10) into Eq. (9), the boundary condition of Eq. (8) is
Given a weigh function 𝜔I (x), A(x) and C(x) are defined as:
{ expressed as:
∑
𝑨(𝒙) = 𝑁 𝜔 (𝒙)𝒃(𝒙𝐼 )𝒃𝑇 (𝒙𝐼 ) ( )
[ 𝐼=1 𝐼 ] (2) ( ( ) )
𝑪 (𝒙) = 𝜔1 (𝒙)𝑏(𝒙1 ) 𝜔2 (𝒙)𝑏(𝒙2 ) ...𝜔𝑁 (𝒙)𝑏(𝒙𝑁 ) 𝜕𝑇 𝑥
+ ℎ∗ 𝑇 𝑥 − 𝑇𝑓∗ ∕ℎ∗ = 0 𝑥 ∈ Γ3 (11)
𝜕𝑛
The shape function S(x) is obtained through Eqs. (1–2), the details
are referred to Ref [37,40]: The boundary of Eq. (11) is similar to Robin boundary. Through replac-
ing the approximate function uh and the interpolation shape function
𝑨(𝒙)𝒂(𝒙)= 𝑪 (𝒙)𝒖 S(x) of Eq. (1) into Eq. (5), the residuals are minimized in a least-squares
𝑺 (𝒙) = 𝒃𝑇 (𝒙)𝑨−1 (𝒙)𝑪 (𝒙) (3) form,

The smooth and continuity of the shape function SI (x) is depending on ∏ [ ]

𝛿 = 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝑘20 ∇2 𝑆𝐽 (𝒙) ⋅ ∇2 𝑆𝐼 (𝒙)𝑢𝐼 𝑑Ω+ 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝑆𝐽 (𝒙) 𝑆𝐼 (𝒙)𝑢𝐼 − 𝑇0 𝑑Γ
the weight function 𝜔I (x) which is only nonzero in a small circlular ∫Ω ∫ Γ1
“support domain” of node xI . The exponential function is employed in
this article. + 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝒙) ⋅ (𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐼 (𝒙)𝑢𝐼 − 𝑞0 )𝑑Γ
∫Γ2
{
(exp(−𝑟𝑟2 𝛽 2 ) − exp(−𝛽 2 ))∕(1 − exp(−𝛽 2 )) 𝑟𝑟 ≤ 1
𝜔(𝑟𝑟) = (4) 𝛿𝑢 (𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝒙) + ℎ𝑆𝐽 (𝒙))
0 𝑟𝑟 > 1 +
∫Γ3 𝐽
In which,rr = ‖x − xI ‖/dmI ,𝛽 = 4 in the examples of Section 3. dmI is the [ ]
⋅ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐼 (𝒙)𝑢𝐼 − ℎ∗ (𝑇𝑓∗ ∕ℎ∗ − 𝑆𝐼 (𝒙)𝑢𝐼 ) 𝑑Γ (12)
radius of the circular support domain.
From Eq. (3), in order to solve the shape function S(x) it must make
In order to avoid integration we can use an alternative discrete equa-
A(x) non-singular at anywhere of the problem domain. So the support
tion:
domain should contain enough neighborhood nodes. Through testing in
𝑁 𝑁1
some numerical examples and comparing with their analytical solutions, ∏ ∑ ∑ [ ]
𝛿 = 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝑘20 ∇2 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ ∇2 𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑢𝐼 + 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) 𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑢𝐼 − 𝑇0
the proper number of node in the circular domain is 15–18 in this article.
𝑚=1 𝑚=1

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H.M. Zhou, G. Qin and S.X. Jing Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 128 (2021) 290–297

𝑁2
∑ ( ) Differentiate on both sides of the Eq. (18), we have:
+ 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆 𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆 𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑢𝐼 − 𝑞0
𝑚=1 𝑘0 ∇𝜓 = 𝑘(𝑇 )∇𝑇 (19)
] [ ( )]
𝑁3
∑ [
+ 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) + ℎ 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑢𝐼 − ℎ∗ 𝑇𝑓∗ ∕ℎ∗ − 𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑢𝐼
∗
Replace Eq. (17) with Eq. (19), the equation is changed into a linear
𝑚=1
Laplace’s equation through adding the heat source on the previous Eq.
(13) (5),
Solving the heat conduction equations of constant thermal conductivity 𝑘0 ∇2 𝜓 + 𝑄 = 0 (20)
are expressed as in the following matrix form:
Of course, the boundary condition is changed after Kirchhoff transfor-
𝐿𝑇 = 𝑃 (14)
mation. For example, suppose the linear-type equation of temperature
𝑁 𝑁1
∑ ∑ related material property is: k(T) = A + BT.
𝑳= 𝑘20 ∇2 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ ∇2 𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) + 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) 𝜓 is obtained as the following form through solving from Eq. (18):
𝑚=1 𝑚=1
𝑁2 𝐴𝑇 𝐵𝑇 2
∑ 𝜓= + (21)
+ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) 𝑘0 2𝑘0
𝑚=1
Assuming T is the negative, and Solving T from Eq. (21):
𝑁3
∑ [ ] [ ] √
+ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) + ℎ∗ 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) + ℎ∗ 𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) 𝐴2 + 2𝑘0 𝐵𝜓 − 𝐴
𝑇 =Θ−𝟏 (𝜓) = (22)
𝑚=1 𝐵
(15)
The boundary condition about T is as follows:
𝑁1 𝑁2
∑ ∑ ( )
𝑷 = 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑇0 + 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑞0 Dirichlet boundary 𝑇 𝒙 = 𝑇0 𝒙 ∈ Γ1 (23)
𝑚=1 𝑚=1
𝑁3
∑ [ ] Neumann boundary ∶ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘(𝑇 (𝒙))∇𝑇 (𝒙) = 𝑞0 𝒙 ∈ Γ2 (24)
+ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) + ℎ∗ 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) 𝑇𝑓∗ (16)
𝑚=1
( )
where, N is the number of interior nodes in the problem region Ω, N1 , N2 Robin boundary ∶ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘(𝑇 (𝒙))∇𝑇 (𝒙) = ℎ 𝑇𝑓 − 𝑇 (𝒙) 𝒙 ∈ Γ3 (25)
and N3 are the number of boundary nodes in the boundary 𝛤1 , 𝛤2 and 𝛤3 ,
respectively. I, J refers to discrete nodes include the above-mentioned ( )
interior nodes and boundary nodes. Radiation boundary ∶ 𝑛 ⋅ 𝑘(𝑇 (𝒙))∇𝑇 (𝒙) = 𝜎𝜀 𝑇𝑠4 − 𝑇 4 (𝒙) 𝒙 ∈ Γ4
(26)
2.3. Solution procedure for constant thermal conductivity heat transfer
By substituting Eqs. (23-26) for Eqs. (19, 21–22), the boundary con-
For the constant thermal conductivity problem of Section 2.2, the dition about 𝜓 is as follows:
solution procedure is as follows:
𝐴𝑇0 𝐵𝑇0
2
Step 1: Select a proper grid resolution for discretization of the prob- 𝜓= + = 𝑇0 (27)
lem domain and boundaries; Step 2: Define the basis function in Eq. 𝑘0 2𝑘0
(1) and weight function of Eq. (4). 𝑛 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝜓 = 𝑛 ⋅ 𝑘(𝑇 (𝑥))∇𝑇 (𝑥) = 𝑞0 (28)
Step 3: Set the initial temperature values for all discrete nodes.
Step 4: Calculate the shape function and its derivatives through Eq. ( )
(3); assemble the matrix as Eqs. (14–16) concerned in this problem. 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝜓 = 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘(𝑇 (𝑥))∇𝑇 (𝒙) = ℎ 𝑇𝑓 − Θ−1 (𝜓 ) 𝑥 ∈ Γ3 (29)
Step 5: Loop iteration at every numerical calculations.
( ( )4 )
(1) With the known temperature, solve T of the Eq. (14) for the tem- 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝜓 = 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘(𝑇 (𝑥))∇𝑇 (𝒙) = 𝜎𝜀 𝑇𝑠4 − Θ−1 (𝜓 ) 𝑥 ∈ Γ3 (30)
perature for all nodes, then the temperature T∗ of boundary 𝛤3 is
obtained. From Eq. (27–28), we can see the boundary condition is still linear
(2) Replace h∗ in Eq. (10) with the above results T∗ of (1). boundary after transformation. However, Eq. (29) and Eq. (30) are non-
(3) Stop the global iteration program when the following criterion linear boundary
√ condition about 𝜓 after transformation. As for Eq. (29),
𝐾 +1 𝐾 𝐴2 +2𝑘 𝐵𝜓 −𝐴
|𝑇𝑖 𝑛 −𝑇𝑖 𝑛 |
( max 𝐾 +1 < 𝛿) is satisfied. Otherwise go back to (1) of Θ−1 (𝜓) = 𝐵
0
≠ 𝜓at the boundary where the convection oc-
1≤𝑖≤𝑁 |𝑇𝑖 𝑛 |
curs. With respect to Eq. (30), it includes the fourth power of(Θ−1 (𝜓))4
Step 5.
≠ 𝜓 at the Radiation boundary. In order to avoid integration an alter-
2.4. Heat transfer analysis for linear-type temperature related thermal native discrete equation is employed. If we only discussed the Dirichlet
conductivity and Neumann boundary condition of Eqs. (27–28) the following equa-
tion can be obtained:
The governing equation for heat transfer problems in isotropic mate- 𝑁
( 𝑁1 )
∏ ∑ ( ) ∑
rial suffered from interior resource Q with temperature related thermal 𝛿 = 𝛿𝑢𝐽 ∇2 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ ∇2 𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) + 𝑄 + 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )(𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑢𝐼 − 𝑇̄0
𝑚=1 𝑚=1
conductivity can be expressed as:
𝑁2
∑ ( )
∇(𝑘(𝑻 )∇𝑻 ) + 𝑄 = 0 (17) + 𝛿𝑢𝐽 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆 𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆 𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑢𝐼 − 𝑞0 (33)
𝑚=1
To solve the nonlinear Eq. (17), Kirchhoff [20] introduced an integral
transformation from the reference temperature 0 to T in Eq. (18) on the The system equations of the MWLS method for solving steady-state
basis of a function𝜓 = Θ(T). From then on, the Kirchhoff transformation heat conduction equations for temperature-dependent material proper-
has been widely used to solve heat transfer problems of temperature ties are obtained as
related variable thermal conductivity material.
𝐿𝜓 = 𝑃 (34)
𝑇
𝑘(𝜏)
𝜓 = Θ(𝑇 ) = 𝑑𝜏 (18)
∫0 𝑘0

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H.M. Zhou, G. Qin and S.X. Jing Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 128 (2021) 290–297

Fig. 1. Temperature filed of black sphere.

Fig. 2. The temperature comparison with exact solution.

𝑁 𝑁1
∑ ∑
𝑳= 𝑘20 ∇2 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 ) ⋅ ∇2 𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) + 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 )
𝑚=1 𝑚=1
𝑁2
∑
+ 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘20 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝒏 ⋅ ∇𝑆𝐼 (𝑥𝑚 ) (35)
𝑚=1

𝑁 𝑁1 𝑁2
∑ ∑ ∑
𝑷 =− 𝑘0 ∇2 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑄 + 𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑠 )𝑇 0 + 𝒏 ⋅ 𝑘0 ∇𝑆𝐽 (𝑥𝑚 )𝑞0 (36)
𝑚=1 𝑚=1 𝑚=1

where, N is the number of interior nodes in the problem region Ω, N1

and N2 is the number of boundary nodes in the boundary 𝛤1 and 𝛤2 ,
respectively. So, 𝝍=L−1 P, then we can solve the unknown temperature
distribution T from Eq. (22).
For the mixed nonlinear boundary condition, we can solve the prob-
lem using the two-step iterative method analogous to Ref. [25]. In the
beginning, calculating the temperature distribution when the prescribed
temperature is given on the boundary. Then, through the global iteration
the temperature distribution is updated on the basis of the prescribed
flux boundary condition by the previous temperature. The details of so-
lution process is described in the Section 3.3 and 3.4.
3. Numerical results and discussion
3.1. Case 1
Fig. 3. Geometry and boundary condition.
3.2. Case 2
An example of semicircular enclosure with inner circle is shown in
Fig. 3, the temperature of the outer semicircle and the inner circle are
constant, To =1000 K and Ti =500 K, respectively. While the bottom sur-
face is under the mixed nonlinear boundary condition. The parameters
are set as: k = 20, h = 20 W/m2 K, Tf =Ts =300 K.
The heat conductive equation and boundary conditions are as fol-
lows:
𝑘∇2 𝑇 = 0 𝑖𝑛 Ω

To verify the method presented by our team, we consider the con-
stant thermal conductivity heat transfer problem in a rigid and black
sphere, surrounded by vacuum which is heated by an internal heat re-
source Q and by an external black surface (with prescribed temperature
Ts ) [24]. The radius of the sphere is a. The heat conduction equation
and boundary condition is expressed as follows:
𝑘∇2 𝑇 + 𝑄 = 0 0 ≤ 𝑟 < 𝑎
| (37)
− 𝑘 dT |
dr |𝑟=𝑎
= 𝜀𝜎𝑇 4 − 𝜀𝜎𝑇𝑠4 𝑟 = 𝑎
The analytical solution of this case [24] is
𝑄 2 𝑄𝑎
𝑇 = (𝑎 − 𝑟2 ) + ( + 𝑇𝑠4 )1∕4
6𝑘 3𝜎
Where Q = 10,000, r = 1, ɛ=1, carry out the global iteration using the
steps of Section 2.3. Fig. 1 showed the temperature distribution of this
model. The comparison of temperature value in y = 0 with analytical
solution is shown in Fig. 2. It showed that the results obtained by the
MWLS method agree well with the analytical solution.
𝑇 = 𝑇𝑜 𝑥2 + 𝑦2 = 1 0 < 𝑦 < 1
𝑇 = 𝑇𝑖 𝑥2 + (𝑦 − 0.4)2 = 0.04
𝜕𝑇
−𝑘 = ℎ(𝑇 − 𝑇𝑓 ) + 𝜎𝜇(𝑇 4 − 𝑇𝑠4 ) − 1 ≤ 𝑥 ≤ 1; 𝑦 = 0 (39)
𝜕𝑛
The temperature distribution is showed in Fig. 4(a). For the same
geometry (Fig. 3), other conditions are the same as Eq. (39) except that
the bottom side is adiabatic boundary. The temperature field of this heat
transfer problem is shown in Fig. 4(b). We do some comparisons with
different boundary conditions on the bottom side as shown in Fig. 5.
It showed that there existed a little difference between the combined
Robin and Radiation boundary with the pure Robin boundary, however,
(38) it exhibited the obvious difference between the Robin boundary and
adiabatic boundary.
3.3. Case 3
The above two examples are the constant thermal conductivity heat
transfer problem. Fig. 6 describes a unite square area of linear-type

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Fig. 4. Temperature distribution of different

boundary (a) Robin and radiation boundary (b)
Adiabatic boundary.

Table 1
The temperature comparison of different Collocation point in different grid size.

Collocation point 2 4 6 8 20 22

Ref [6] 306.87 305.86 304.14 301.88 307.04 311.74

MWLS(11×11) 306.60 305.62 304.07 302.07 307.83 311.75
percentage error −0.09% −0.08% −0.03% 0.06% 0.26% 0
MWLS(21×21) 306.75 305.78 304.23 302.24 307.90 311.88
percentage error −0.04% −0.03% 0.03% 0.1% 0.28% 0.04%
Collocation point 24 26 29 31 33 35
Ref [6] 314.49 315.91 313.32 310.35 308.39 307.33
MWLS(11×11) 314.20 315.58 312.62 310.05 308.29 307.27
percentage error −0.09% −0.1% −0.22% −0.1% −0.03% −0.02%
MWLS(21×21) 314.34 315.72 312.76 310.20 308.44 307.42
percentage error −0.05% −0.06% −0.18% −0.05% 0.02% 0.03%

The boundary conditions are expressed as:

𝜕𝜓
=0 𝑥 = 0; 0 < 𝑦 < 1
𝜕𝑥
𝜕𝜓
=0 0 < 𝑥 < 1; 𝑦 = 0
Fig. 5. Bottom surface temperature comparison of different boundary condi- 𝜕𝑦
tions. ( )
𝜓 = 𝑇𝑙 1 + 0.5𝑘1 𝑇𝑙 𝑥 = 1; 0 < 𝑦 < 1
( √ )
𝜕𝜓 −1 + 1 + 2𝜓𝑘1
− =ℎ − 𝑇𝑓 0 < 𝑥 < 1; 𝑦 = 1 (41)
𝜕𝑦 𝑘1

Fig. 6. Geometry and boundary conditions.
thermal conductivity isotropic material. The boundary condition is also
shown in Fig. 6. The known parameters are as follows: h = 10 W/m2 K;
Tf =500 K;𝑘(𝑇 ) = 1 + 𝑘1 𝑇 𝑘1 = {0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5} . For constant ther-
mal conductivity k1 =0, the temperature distribution along the boundary
ABCDA and design region are shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. If
k1 = {0.1, 0.3, 0.5}, applying Kirchhoff transformation, Eq. (20) without
heat resource can be written as:
∇2 𝜓 = 0 0 < (𝑥, 𝑦) < 1 (40)
The main calculation steps are as follows. First, the prescribed ini-
tial temperature 𝜓 0 = Tf (1 + 0.5k1 Tf ) is attached on the top boundary
the same as the right boundary, √ next, by iteration procedure the con-
𝑖 1+2𝜓 𝑖−1 𝑘1
vection boundary − 𝜕𝜕𝑦
𝜓 −1+
= ℎ( 𝑘1
− 𝑇𝑓 ) = 𝑞0 are converted into
Neumann boundary condition analogous to Eq. (28). The temperature
distribution 𝜓 i can be calculated from Eqs. (34)–(36). By updating the
𝜓 i-1 and q0 until the convergence condition (‖𝜓 i − 𝜓 i − 1 ‖2 < tol = 10−5 )
is achieved. In the end, T is calculated by Eq. (22). Fig. 8 showed the
temperature distribution along the boundary ABCDA with different k1 .
When, k1 =0.3, Table 1 listed the temperature comparison of different
Collocation point in different grid size with the published Ref. [6], in
which collocation point 2, 4, 6,8 is in AD, point 20,22,24,26 in CB, point
29,31,33,35 in BA as shown in Fig. 6. From Table 1, we can see that
the errors in 11×11 resolution is higher than 21×21 at some collocation
points and others is converse. The maximum errors appeared in the 20th
and the 29th point which is near the boundary point B and C. The results
showed that the high grid resolution does not obviously improve the ac-
curacy of the presented methods. Anyway, Fig. 8 and Table 1 showed
that the results obtained by our presented method agreed well with the
Ref. [6].
For the same geometry (Fig. 6), on the top side heat is exchanged by
both convection with a fluid having temperature Tf =500 K and radia-
tion with surface having a temperature Ts =500 K. where k0 =1 W/mK,
h0 =10 W/m2 K, ɛ=1. Using the global iteration steps of Section2.3, we
can obtain the temperature distribution in Fig. 9. It showed that there

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Fig. 7. Temperature distribution (a) along the boundary ABCDA in k1 =0 (b) Temperature distribution of design region.

Fig. 10. Geometry and boundary conditions.

existed a little difference between the combined Robin and Radiation

Fig. 8. Temperature along the boundary ABCDA in the different k1.
boundary with the only Robin boundary.
The current case is an example with regular square region for linear-
type temperature related material. The results are consistent with the
published reference and which has good stability with different nodal
distribution.

3.4. Case 4

As shown in Fig. 10, this example is a simplified cross section of

an industrial furnace. The temperature related thermal conductivity
is 𝑘(𝑇 ) = 1 + 𝑘1 𝑇 𝑘1 = {0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.8}.On the nonlinear bound-
ary surface EFA heat is exchanged with bodies having temperatures
Tf =500 K and Ts =1000 K by convection and radiation, simultaneously.
T0 =320 K; h0 =40 W/m2 K; 𝜀=0.7.
Using Kirchhoff transformation, the heat transfer equation and its
boundary can be rewritten as:
∇2 𝜓 𝑖 = 0 in Ω
𝜕𝜓 𝑖
= 0 in ΓED and ΓBA
𝜕𝑛
( )
𝜓 𝑖 = 𝑇𝑙 1 + 0.5𝑘1 𝑇𝑙 in ΓCB and ΓCD
𝜕𝜓 𝑖 ( ( ) ) ( ( )4 )
𝑘0 = −ℎ Θ−1 𝜓 𝑖−1 − 𝑇𝑓 − 𝜎𝜀 Θ−1 𝜓 𝑖−1 − 𝑇𝑠4 in ΓAF and ΓFE (42)
𝜕𝑛
The same as Case 3, the prescribed initial temperature
Fig. 9. Temperature comparison of two various boundary condition .
𝜓 0 = Tf (1 + 0.5k1 Tf ) is attached on the initial 𝛤𝐴𝐹 and 𝛤𝐹 𝐸

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H.M. Zhou, G. Qin and S.X. Jing Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 128 (2021) 290–297

achieved by the presented method. With the increase of value k1 , the

number of iterations is decreased.

4. Conclusion

In this paper, the heat conduction transfer for nonlinear bound-

ary conditions involving radiation with constant and temperature-
dependent conductivity material is presented. For the constant thermal
conductivity, it need to linearize the fourth power of radiation item, and
solve the linear heat transfer equation through the global iteration com-
bined with the meshless weighted least squares method. On the other
side, as for the temperature related variable thermal conductivity, we
can use the Kirchhoff transformation tool to turn the nonlinear equation
into the linear Laplace’s one. The convection and radiation boundary
are converted into Dirichlet and Neumann boundary via the two-step
iteration method. In the end, through several numerical examples the
effectiveness and accuracy of the presented method was verified.

Declaration of Competing Interest

Fig. 11. The temperature distribution along the boundary CBAFEDC.
None.

Acknowledgments

The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from

National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.51505131),
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project (Grant
No.2019M662492) and Postdoctoral project of Henan province of
2019 (Grant No.201902035). The correlative members of the projects
are hereby acknowledged .

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