Heat Diffusion in a Semi-Infinite Region

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This Demonstration shows solutions for the one-dimensional heat diffusion equation in a semi-infinite region. Starting from a uniform initial temperature,
, and using normalized parameters (
, the dimensionless temperature distribution is animated in time for the three classical boundary conditions at
, namely: constant surface temperature,
; constant surface heat flux,
; and convective exchange with a fluid at
,
. For the convection case, temperature distributions for a relatively high, medium, and low value of the heat transfer coefficient
are displayed. A high
(red curve) gives results close to the constant surface temperature case, while a low
value (blue curve) gives results similar to the constant heat flux case. In all cases the thermal affected zone is of the order of
.
Contributed by: Brian Vick (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
These animations were generated from the analytical solutions, which can be found in the source code. The following nomenclature is used.
= temperature (K)
= position (m)
= time (s)
= thermal conductivity (W/m K)
= thermal conductivity (W/m
)
= surface heat flux (W/m
)
= heat transfer coefficient (W/m
K)
= external fluid temperature (K)
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