Thermal analysis of solids at high Peclet numbers subjected to moving heatsources

A three-dimensional hear transfer model has been developed to obtain the co nductive thermal field inside a brick-type solid under a moving heat source with different beam profiles. The problem in quasi-steady state has been a pproximated by neglecting the axial diffusion component; thus, for Peclet n umbers greater than 5, the elliptic differential equation becomes a parabol ic one along the motion direction. The dependence of the solution on the ra diative and convective heat losses has been highlighted. Thermal fields are strongly dependent on different spot shapes and on the impinging jet; this situation allows control of the parameters involved in the technological p rocess.