Lecture 14 February 4, 2004

2D Numerical Steady Conduction

Recall the heat diffusion equation.

Or with constant conductivity and no generation,

Finite difference methods simply replace derivatives with

numerical approximations, without any regard for the
physics. This is dangerous, because if you do not have
enough resolution, then your solution will not conserve
energy and will be useless.

Finite volume on the other hand takes a step back to the

step before we integrated the energy equation to derive the
heat diffusion equation, and strictly enforces conservation
on each and every control volume. It forces conservation
even with very coarse resolution. The finite volume
method is thus strongly preferred in heat transfer and fluid
mechanics.

Consider our single control volume from a finite volume

analysis, and integrate the fluxes over each face. In order
to do that, we need an approximation of the temperature
gradient at each face. Start by using a first order
approximation at each face,

We also need the face areas in order to calculate heat rates,

and we can express these in terms of dxp, dxm, dym,dyp

Now we can calculate the heat rates through each face, and
integrate them (i.e. apply conservation of energy). If the
conductivity was variable, either because the material
changed, or it was a function of temperature, we could
simply evaluate k locally at each face, and use that to
determine the flux there.

The heat rates at each face are then,

Anyhow, when we assemble the terms using conservation

of energy, we find,
If there was volumetric generation, the above would not be
equal to zero, but to –qdot (Volume)

All we have left to do is to apply the boundary conditions,

and this is done exactly as above except one the the faces
will have a different heat flux through it (convection, or
specified flux etc.)