DIGITAL-SIMULATION OF TRANSIENT HEAT-CONDUCTION WITH POLYNOMIAL VARIABLE THERMAL-CONDUCTIVITY AND SPECIFIC-HEAT

The transient thermal responses observed in a slab, the thermal conduc tivity and specific heat of which showed polynomial temperature depend ence, were simulated digitally by means of the network method. A gener al network model for this process is proposed regardless of the polyno mial degree, which includes initial and boundary conditions. With this network model and using the electrical circuit simulation program PSP ICE, time-dependent temperature and heat flow profiles at any location can be obtained. This approach allows us to solve this conduction pro blem at a moderate cost in computer time, without the necessity of con sidering numerical and programming aspects. The results are compared w ith those obtained by other methods for a particular case. (C) 1998 El sevier Science B.V.