A DUAL RECIPROCITY BOUNDARY-ELEMENT APPROACH TO 3-DIMENSIONAL TRANSIENT HEAT-CONDUCTION AS APPLIED TO MATERIALS PROCESSING

The dual reciprocity boundary element method (DRBEM) is implemented to solve three-dimensional transient heat conduction problems in the pre sence of arbitrary sources, typically as these problems arise in mater ials processing. The DRBEM has a major advantage over conventional BEM , since it avoids the computation of volume integrals. These integrals stern from transient, nonlinear, and/or source terms. Thus there is n o need to discretize the inner domain, since only a number of internal points are needed for the computation. The validity of the method is assessed upon comparison with results from benchmark problems where an alytical solutions exist. There is generally good agreement. Compariso n against finite element results is also favorable. Calculations are c arried out in order to assess the influence of the number and location of internal nodes. The influence of the ratio of the numbers of inter nal to boundary nodes is also examined.