Heat Transfer-Wolfram Language Documentation

12/8/22, 8:19 PM Heat Transfer—Wolfram Language Documentation
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PDE MODELS MONOGRAPH
Heat Transfer
Introduction
Appendix
Heat Equation
Nomenclature
Boundary Conditions in Heat Transfer

References
Introduction
This tutorial gives an introduction to modeling heat transfer. Equations and boundary conditions that are
relevant for performing heat transfer analysis are derived and explained.
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that is concerned with the movement of energy. The driving
force behind a heat transfer are temperature differences. The temperature differences come about though
different phenomena in the interior or on the boundary of the simulation domain and can be categorized into
thermal conduction, thermal convection and thermal radiation. Combining all effects, the changes in a
temperature field in a given region over time is then modeled with a heat equation.
The modeling process results in a partial differential equation (PDE) that can be solved with NDSolve .
Furthermore, in this tutorial different types of heat sources are introduced as well as an overview of how various
real world thermal interactions can be modeled with the available thermal boundary conditions.
The accuracy and the effectiveness of the heat transfer PDE model is validated in the separate notebook entitled
Heat Transfer Verification Tests.
Extended examples of heat transfer modeling can be found in the Model Collection.
Many of the animations of the simulation results shown in this notebook are generated with a call to Rasterize .
This is to reduce the disk space this notebook requires. The downside is that the visual quality of the animations
will not be as crisp as without it. To obtain high quality graphics remove or comment out the call to Rasterize .
To get high fidelity visualizations comment out the rasterization process.

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https://reference.wolfram.com/language/PDEModels/tutorial/HeatTransfer/HeatTransfer.html 1/53
The symbols and corresponding units used throughout this tutorial are summarized in the Nomenclature
section.
Load the finite element package.

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Heat Equation
Introduction to Heat Equation

The heat equation (1), which is derived from the law of energy conservation, is used for modeling time dependent
heat flow within a thermally conductive medium:
The dependent variable in the heat equation is the temperature , which varies with time and position . The
partial differential equation (PDE) model describes how thermal energy is transported over time in a medium
with density and specific heat capacity . The specific heat capacity is a material property
that specifies the amount of heat energy that is needed to raise the temperature of a substance with unit mass by
one degree Kelvin.
Beside the time derivative part the PDE is made up of several components. First and foremost there is a diffusive
term: with a thermal conductivity . The thermal conductivity may very well depend
on the temperature itself. This will then result in a nonlinear heat equation.
A second part is a convective term: with a flow velocity for modeling internal heat
convection. This term is only present if the medium allows for an internal flow. If the simulation medium is a
solid then this term is zero.
The term denotes a heat source within the domain, and is explained in the Source Types section.
Heat Equation Derivation
To derive the heat equation start from energy conservation. Consider balancing the energy generated within a
unit volume domain with the energy flowing through the boundary of the domain.
In the above graphics, is the density and is the internal energy per unit mass. The total energy
within the control volume is then equal to the product . The red circle in the middle represents a heat source
, which denotes thermal energy that is generated inside the domain . The heat flux represents
the net energy that exits through the boundaries.
The energy balance within the domain can be described by the following equation:
That is, the change in the total energy is equal to the energy generated inside the domain minus the net
energy that exits the domain .
Here the energy flux can be divided into two parts: a convection term and a diffusion term .
The convection term denotes the energy transported by a possible flow inside the medium, and is in proportional
to a flow velocity :
If the heat transfer occurs in a solid medium, then, because a solid can not have an internal velocity field by
definition, the convection term is set to .
The diffusion term represents the energy flux resulting from the energy gradient, and is proportional to its
energy diffusivity :
For heat transfer modeling the diffusion term (2) is often expressed in the form of the temperature gradient
instead, which is known as Fourier's law of heat conduction:
Here the energy diffusivity is represented by the thermal conductivity , and the minus sign indicates that the
heat diffusion is in the direction of decreasing temperature.
Note that the diffusive component is always present, regardless of the medium.
The principal property of the diffusion term is smoothing, this is explained in the section: The Smoothing
Characteristic of the Diffusion Equation.
Inserting (3) and (4) into the energy balance equation (5) yields:
or
Note that the above equations hold for both continuous and discontinuous density/velocity fields. This is
explained in more detail in the appendix Conservation Laws with Discontinuous PDE coefficients.
Since we consider a domain with a unit volume , the total mass within the domain is then equal to:
. Therefore, the term: on the left hand side can be interpreted as a mass conservation
equation. Specifically, the time derivative part is understood as the accumulation (or loss) of mass in the domain
over time, while the divergence term part denotes the difference of the mass inflow versus outflow.
The rate of the mass inflow is equal to the rate of the mass outflow plus the accumulation/loss of mass within the
domain . When there is no internal mass generation/elimination, the term sums up to zero and
can be removed from the equation (6) leading to:
This leads to a restriction on the usage of the heat transfer model: Equation (7) and the resulting heat transfer
PDEs (8) and (9) can not be used when the mass in the medium changes.
Since the internal energy depends on the temperature: , equation (10) can be rewritten into the
following form using the chain rule:
Here the term is also known as the specific heat capacity , which denotes the ratio of the energy added
to/removed from the domain to the resulting temperature change. With this definition equation (11) simplifies to
the heat equation:
PDE for heat transfer in a medium with flow.
The general heat equation describes the energy conservation within the domain , and can be used to solve for
the temperature field in a heat transfer model. Since it involves both a convective term and a diffusive term,
the equation (12) is also called the convection-diffusion equation.
In a solid medium, however, the internal velocity field is set to zero and the governing PDE simplifies to a pure
conductive heat equation:
PDE for heat transfer in a solid medium.
Note that the preceding heat equation (13) is written in a non-conservative form. That is, the term
and with it the density and the velocity are outside of the divergence operator. One could imagine that
convective term inside the divergence operator. However, since both and might be space dependent, the
general heat equation (14) cannot simply be transformed into a conservative form.
The heat equation may also be expressed in cylindrical and spherical coordinates. Please refer to the appendix
section "Special Cases of the Heat Equation" for detail explanation.
Heat Transfer Model Setup
Defining a function that represents the spatial terms of a heat transfer model in Cartesian coordinates will make
the setup of a heat equation more convenient.
The inputs needed for an heat transfer model are
the temperature variable

the spatial independent variables
a velocity field
the thermal conductivity
the density
the heat capacity
a heat source/sink
Set up a 1D static heat transfer model.
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Set up a 2D static heat transfer model.

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Set up a 1D time dependent heat transfer model.

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Note that this model definition uses inactive PDE operators. "Numerical Solution of Partial Differential
Equations" has several sections that explain the use of inactive operators.
Model Parameter Setup

The following model parameters are used for the examples in this notebook. These parameters define the
simulation domain , the simulation end time and thermal properties of a medium.
Set up model parameters for the domain and the simulation end time .
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To make use of specific material parameters in the equation we extract relevant data from the ThermodynamicData .
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In some examples we will be using a smoothed step function to prescribe a time profile for a transient
parameter, for example the heat flux or the surface temperature . The smoothed step function is defined
as follows:
Here the minimum value and the maximum value the function can reach are denoted by and . The
location of the step is controlled by and the smoothed steepness is controlled by .
Define and visualize the smoothed step function .

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Basic Heat Transfer Example

The following 2D stationary example [15] demonstrates a typical workflow of heat transfer modeling.
The model domain of width and height of is a ceramic strip that is embedded in a
high-thermal-conductive material. The side boundaries of the strip are maintained at a constant temperature
. The top surface of the strip is losing heat via both thermal convection and thermal radiation to
the ambient environment at . The bottom boundary, however, is assumed to be thermally
insulated.
Our goal is to find the steady-state temperature distribution of the ceramic strip.
Set up a rectangular domain with a width of and a height of .
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The thermal conductivity , heat transfer coefficient , density , heat capacity and emissivity of the
ceramic trip are given by:
Define the model parameters.

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Set up temperature surface boundary conditions at the left and right boundaries.
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Set up the convective boundary condition on the top surface.

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Set up the thermal radiation boundary condition on the top surface.

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A default thermally insulated boundary condition is implicitly applied on the remaining bottom boundary.
Solve the heat transfer PDE model.

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Visualize the steady-state temperature distribution.

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In the steady-state, the minimum temperature is found on the top surface that is cooled by both convection and
radiation. The defined temperature at the side is the maximum temperature since heat diffuses into the medium
from the sides.
The setting of thermal boundary conditions will be explained in detail in a following section: Boundary
Conditions in Heat Transfer.
Source Types
The source term in the heat equation (16) is used to model internal heat generation ( ) or absorption (
) within the domain. Based on their shape heat sources are categorized as a Volumetric Heat Source, Layer
Heat Source and Point Heat Source.
It is important that the mesh conforms to the geometrical bounds of the source term , either by explicitly
generating the mesh for them or by making use of the MeshRefinementFunction .
Set up model variables and model parameters.

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Volumetric Heat Source

A volumetric heat source can be used to model an arbitrarily shaped heat source ( ) or heat sink (
) within the domain. The corresponding source strength denotes the rate of an internal heating or cooling per
unit volume.
The term volumetric heat source may be a bit misleading. This is best seen by looking at the unit of a volumetric
heat source that depends on the dimension of the system. In a 1D domain ( ), 2D domain ( ) and
in a 3D domain ( ) has a unit of , and , respectively. So the name comes from
the 3D incarnation of the heat source but is used in other dimensions as well.
In the following 2D example a rectangular heat source is introduced to heat up the domain. The source
strength is fixed at .
Define a 2D domain and a rectangular source region.
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For more involved shapes of a heat source, the function RegionMember can be used to specify the source region
.
Set up the heat source with a source strength with a RegionMember function.
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In this case, however, because the shape of the heat source is simple we can simply specify the formula of the
source region by making use of an If statement. This will lead to a more efficient time integration. The
reason the If statement is more efficient is that it can be automatically compiled while the RegionMemberFunction
can not be compiled.
Also, see this note about the set up of efficient PDE coefficients.
Find a simplified region member test for a rectangle with exact numbers.
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Set up a simplified heat source .

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The most accurate and efficient method to deal with heat sources is by element makers as then the mesh will
have a specific subregion for the heat source which will result in an accurate solution. More information on
markers and their generation in meshes can be found in the Element Mesh Generation tutorial.
An example that uses element makers for the heat source set up is presented in the appendix section: Modeling
Heat Source by Element Markers.
Define the heat transfer PDE with a volumetric source term and an initial temperature field .
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Solve the PDE with NDSolveValue .

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Set up a legend bar and ContourPlot options for the temperature field plot.
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Make an animation of the solution using Plot and ListAnimate .
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See this note about improving the visual quality of the animation.
The simulation begins with an undisturbed domain where . With a volumetric heat source placed
in the domain, thermal energy is generated and gradually heats up the domain. The speed of the heat transfer
depends on the heat conductivity and the heat capacity of the material.
Layer Heat Source

A layer heat source models a heat source ( ) or heat sink ( ) that is too thin to have a thickness in the
model geometry. A layer heat source can be made use of in 3D and in 2D domains. In 1D domains a layer heat is
the same dimension as the simulation domain, which would make it a volumetric source. The corresponding
source strength denotes the rate of the internal heating or cooling per unit area.
Here is a Dirac delta function at the source location .
The Dirac delta function, however, poses a problem in numerical simulations as it can not be resolved in the
discretized spatial domain. This is because the Dirac delta function is singular at the source location . A second
problem is that the evaluation of coefficients always happens within mesh elements, never at the edges. Hence,
an approximation to the Dirac delta function is needed. The process of approximating the Dirac delta function is
called regularization.
There are various regularized delta functions available [17][18]. In this tutorial we choose:
where is the regularization parameter that controls the support of the regularized delta functions . Typically
should have a size comparable to the mesh spacing .
Set up the regularized delta functions centered on the source region.
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The units of a layer heat source depend on the dimension of the system, much like the volumetric heat source.
In a 3D domain ( ) the layered heat source is presented as a 2D surface, and thus has a unit of .
In 2D domain ( ), however, the geometry of a layer heat source renders into a 1D line, and the unit of
becomes . In 1D there is no layer heat source. In that case a point heat source should be used instead.
In the following 2D example a layer heat source is added at to heat up the domain. The source
strength is fixed at .
Define a 2D domain and the source region at .

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To accommodate the layered heat source in the mesh, a boundary mesh with the line at is generated.
Generate and visualize the mesh that contains the source region.
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More information on the mesh generation can be found in the Element Mesh Generation tutorial.
To utilize the regularized delta function , we choose the regularization parameter to be half of the mesh spacing:
.
Inspect the mesh spacing and set the regularization parameter .

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Set the layer heat source with the strength using the regularized delta function .
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Define the heat transfer PDE with a layer heat source and an initial temperature field .
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The simulation begins with an undisturbed domain where . With a layer heat source placed at
, the thermal energy is generated and propagates towards both sides of the domain. The speed of the heat
transfer depends on the heat conductivity and the heat capacity of the material.
Note that a layered heat source is not limited to a linear surface ( ) or a straight line ( ). The
following 2D example demonstrates a layer heat source with a curved source region.
Define a 2D domain and a curved source region.

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Generate meshes of boundary and the curved source region.
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Join the two meshes.

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Generate and visualize the mesh that contains the curved source region.
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More information on the mesh generation can be found in the Element Mesh Generation tutorial.
Set the layer heat source with a curved source region.

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With a curved layered heat source heading downward, most of the heat is transported toward the lower half
of the domain.
Point Heat Source

A point heat source can be used to model an internal heat source ( ) or heat sink ( ) that is
considered to have no spatial extension. A point heat source can be made use of in 3D and in 2D domains. In 1D
domains a point heat is corresponds to a boundary condition. The corresponding source strength denotes
the rate of the internal heating or cooling at the source point in unit power.
Since the point heat source has no spatial extension in all directions, the Dirac delta function should be applied
on each dimension (i.e. ) of the modeling domain :
Set up the regularized delta functions centered at the source point .

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In the following 2D example a point heat source is added at to heat up the domain. The
source strength is fixed at .
Generate the mesh that contains the source point .

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Set the point heat source with the strength using the regularized delta function .
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Define the heat transfer PDE with a point heat source and an initial temperature field .
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The simulation begins with an undisturbed domain where . With a point heat source placed in the
domain, thermal energy is generated and spreads out in all directions. The speed of the heat transfer depends on
the heat conductivity and the heat capacity of the material.
Anisotropic and Orthotropic Heat Transfer
In the previous sections we assumed that heated medium is isotropic, that is, the rate of heat transfer is
independent of its direction given the same the temperature gradient . In reality, however, a medium may be
anisotropic. This means that heat diffuses in different directions with a different rate. The diffusion term (19) is
then rewritten as:
or
where is the thermal conductivity tensor. and are called the principal
conductivity coefficients and off-diagonal conductivity coefficients, respectively.
Based on Onsager's [20] principle of the thermodynamics of irreversible processes, the off-diagonal conductivity
must obey the reciprocity relation [21]:
Orthotropic heat transfer is a special case of anisotropic heat transfer. Here the thermal conductivity of a
material is symmetric along the principal directions , and and the off-diagonal conductivity coefficients are
zero. This behaviour can be seen, for example, in fiber composite materials. Then the thermal conductivity tensor
becomes:
As an example, consider a 2D composite material with layered-like structure:
This case is the orthotropic case where the heat transfer is more efficient horizontally. Should the thermal
conductivity tensor be described by:
Set the thermal conductivity tensor of the orthotropic material.
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Set a heat source.

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Visualize the heat transfer in an orthotropic material.

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Unlike the example shown in the previous section, in the case the heat transfer is faster in the horizontal
direction, resulting in a higher temperature zone within .
Nonlinear Heat Transfer

In the previous sections we assumed that the PDE coefficients namely, the density , the heat capacity and
the thermal conductivity are independent of the temperature field . In reality, however, these
parameters might change significantly with temperature, especially for pure metals.
As an example, consider a 1D heat transfer model with an initial temperature field at and a
temperature-dependent thermal conductivity :
Equation (22) is a nonlinear heat transfer model since the conductivity coefficient in the PDE model now
depends on the temperature itself.
Set up the model variables.

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Set up a nonlinear conductivity coefficient.

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To heat up the domain, a constant heat flux is applied on the left hand boundary.
Set up a heat flux boundary condition at the left end with NeumannValue .
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Set the non-linear heat transfer PDE with a temperature-dependent thermal conductivity and an initial temperature field
.
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Solve the nonlinear PDE using NDSolveValue .

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To understand the effects of the nonlinearity compare to a linear heat transfer PDE.
Set up linear heat transfer PDE with a constant thermal conductivity .

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Solve the linear heat transfer PDE.

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Make an animation of the solutions using Plot and ListAnimate .

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The simulation begins with an undisturbed domain where . With a constant heat flux
applied on the left side, thermal energy is then transferred across the boundary and heats up the domain.
For the non-linear model, as the temperature increases the thermal conductivity will increase
correspondingly, which further speeds up the heat transfer and results in a flatter temperature field.
Heat Transfer with Events

A common topic in heat transfer modeling is to simulate dynamic or pulsed thermal loads. That is, a heat flux
that turns on and off under different conditions. In such cases we can make use of WhenEvent to construct and
efficiently solve the heat transfer model.
Consider a 1D room model where heat continuously flows out of the room at both sides. A heater is placed in the
domain to warm up the room, but will only turn on when the temperature at the center drops
below the threshold temperature . To prevent overheating the heater will turn off when is
above .
Set up the model variables.

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To model the conditional heating of the heater, we apply a volumetric heat source using WhenEvent . The
heat source is switched on and off when the central temperature reaches or .
Define a conditional heat source using WhenEvent with a given source strength of .
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To model the cooling of the room, a constant cooling flux is applied on both ends of the domain.
Set up a heat flux boundary condition at the both ends with NeumannValue .
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Next, we define the heat transfer PDE with the conditional heat source . Since the heater is off at the
beginning, the initial value of the heat source is set at .
Set the heat transfer PDE with the conditional heat source .
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Set up the PDE with an initial room temperature .

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To solve this heat transfer PDE we specify as a discrete variable, which means it only changes at discrete
times during the temporal integration by NDSolve .
Solve the heat transfer PDE with the conditional heat source .
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The simulation begins with an uniform temperature at . With a constant cooling flux applied
on both sides, heat continuously flows out of the domain and brings down the room temperature. The heat
source is then turned on and off when the central temperature reaches or , resulting in an
oscillating temperature field.
While it would also be possible to make use of an If statement to model the dynamic or pulsed heat source, the
use of WhenEvent has the distinct advantage that NDSolve has special mechanisms build in to detect the events
during the time integration. This mechanism may not be available when modeling the pulsed heat source with an
If or similar statement.
Details about modeling heat pulses are presented in the appendix section: Possible Issues and Workarounds for
Modeling Heat Pulses.
Heat Transfer in Porous Media
Porous media are multiphase objects with a solid skeleton portion and a porous region that is filled with a fluid.
Due to its special thermal and mechanical properties, porous materials have been widely used in many industrial
applications such as vibration suppression, heat insulation and sound absorption.
To model heat transfer within a porous medium, one approach, called a direct approach, is to build a coupled
PDE with two heat equations with material coefficients suitable for each phase. One equation describes the
temperature field in the solid region and the other equation models the temperature in the fluid region:
Here the subscript denotes the parameters for the solid phase and for the fluid phase. The two equations are
coupled by the volume fraction of each phase, and the heat exchange between two phases are accounted for
explicitly by an additional heat source/sink term on the right hand side.
However, to make use of this approach it is required to reproduce the entire pore structure of the domain. Due to
the geometric complexify of the microscopic porous structure, a fine finite element mesh may be required to
resolve the geometry accurately and thus a significant computational cost to solve the model can be expected.
An alternate approach is to model pores on a macroscopic scale. In this case the heat transfer model uses an
average temperature field to describe the entire porous structure of both phases. To do so volume-averaged
effective thermal properties are used, and the model can be expressed by a single heat equation:
Here is the effective volumetric heat capacity and is the effective heat conductivity, which are
computed based on the volume fraction and the properties of each phase.
Assuming a porous medium to be fully saturated, the volume fraction of both phases can be related by:
. Then the equation (23) becomes:
Note that the fluid's volume fraction is also known as the porosity of the medium. For the sake of simplicity we
will omit its subscript in the following section.
As an example, consider a 2D heat transfer model of a porous medium. A fluid flow is passing through the
domain with a width of and a height of , and a constant heat flux is applied on the left surface to
heat up a domain. To understand the effects of the porosity on the heat transfer, the model will be solved with
three different porosity values of , and (purely fluidic medium).
Set up density , heat capacity and thermal conductivity of the solid and fluid phase.
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Compute the effective conductivity and volumetric heat capacity of the porous medium.
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Equation (24) has an effective volumetric heat capacity in front of the time derivative and at the same time uses
material parameters for the fluidic phase. To accommodate for that the equation is in part generated with
HeatTransferPDEComponent and an additional time derivative term. For that the model variables include a time
dependent variable but not the time variable itself. The time derivative with it's effective volumetric heat capacity
will be added manually.
Set up the model variable.

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Set up model parameters and a right going flow .
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Construct the heat transfer PDE for a porous medium with an initial temperature field .
To heat up the domain, a constant heat flux into the domain is applied on the left surface at
.
Set up a heat flux boundary condition at the left end with NeumannValue .
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Construct the heat transfer PDE for a porous medium with an initial temperature field and a right going flow
.
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Repetitively solve the PDE at the porosity , and with ParametricNDSolveValue .

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Visualize the temperature field of the porous domain with the porosity .
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Note that the temperature field is symmetric in the direction.
To study the effects of the porosity on the heat transfer, we can compare the temperature evolution along the
axis at three different porosity values of , and (purely fluidic medium).
Inspect the temperature distribution along at , and .

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Since the heat capacity value in the solid phase is smaller than in the fluid phase: , the medium with a
larger amount of solid (i.e. lower porosity ) will be more susceptible to the temperature change. This can be
verified by computing the effective volumetric heat capacity at , and .
Compare the effective volumetric heat capacity at different porosity .

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Note that for the effective heat capacity is the smallest.
Heat Transfer Model with Mixed Dimensions

The following section demonstrates how to model heat transfer phenomena defined in different spatial
dimensions. As an example, consider a 2D ceramic strip with an uniform initial temperature at . At the left
surface the ceramic is cooled down by attaching to a thin pad with a cooling flux through it. The cooling flux
is proportional to the temperature difference between the pad and the ceramic with a heat
transfer coefficient .
A constant heat flux is applied on the top of the ceramic. The right and bottom surfaces of the
ceramic are assumed to be thermally insulated.
To solve for the temperature field of the ceramic, a first idea might be to build a single 2D system and
model the cooling pad as a heat flux boundary condition. In this example, however, the cooling flux
depends not only on but also on the pad temperature . In order to determine the value of
the pad temperature it is necessary to also model the heat transfer in the thin cooling pad.
Assuming that the cooling pad to be much thinner than the width of the ceramic, the temperature variation of
the pad in the direction can be neglected. The cooling pad can thus be modeled as a 1D region while the
ceramic strip is modeled as a 2D region. In other words a mixed dimensional model can be used.
For simplicity the heat transfer coefficient and the thermal conductivity , density and heat capacity for
both the ceramic strip and the pad are set to one.
The temperature field within the ceramic strip is described by a 2D heat equation:
Set up a 2D heat transfer model to describe the temperature of the ceramic strip.
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The pad is described by the 1D domain along the axis , which coincides with the left surface of the
ceramic strip. A 1D heat equation can be used to model the pad temperature along the 1D pad region as:
However, to solve a coupled PDE system, NDSolve requires all the dependent variables to have the same spatial
dimensionality. For this reason alone we have to introduce a "fictitious dimension" for the pad temperature in
the direction, yielding:
That is, we will be solving the pad temperature not only in the 1D pad region, but also the entire 2D domain of
the ceramic strip. However, since is just a fictitious dimension for the pad there is no physical meaning to a
value within the ceramic region , which means the resulting pad temperature field will only be
valid along the 1D pad region on the axis .
Set up a heat transfer model for the pad with a fictitious dimension in the direction.
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Next we need to consider the heat exchange between the cooling pad and the ceramic strip. From the perspective
of the ceramic, heat is lost through the left ceramic boundary to the pad, and can be modeled with a heat flux
boundary condition.
Set up a heat flux boundary condition on the left surface of the ceramic with a cooling heat flux .
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Set up the heat transfer coefficient.

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Set up the same boundary condition with a heat transfer value.

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From the perspective of the cooling pad, heat is gained from the ceramic strip over the entire pad domain. This
can be modeled by a heat source term in the equation (25).
Due to the law of energy balance, the heat source of the pad should have the same magnitude but an opposite
sign from the cooling flux of the ceramic.
Set up a heat source to model the heat gain of the pad.

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A constant heating flux is applied on the upper surface of the ceramic.
Set up a constant heat flux on the upper ceramic boundary.

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Set up the initial temperature of the ceramic strip and the cooling pad .
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Solve the coupled heat transfer PDE model.

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Visualize the temperature field of the ceramic strip and the cooling pad.
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Next we inspect the pad temperature within the 1D pad region , and compare it to the ceramic
temperature on the left ceramic surface. A custom function, TwoAxisPlot, is defined and applied to rescale the
temperature range in the plot for better visualization.
Inspect the pad temperature and the ceramic temperature along at .

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Since the heat gain of the pad depends on the ceramic temperature , the pad temperature follows a similar
pattern with along the left ceramic surface .
Inspect the temperature field of the ceramic along the cross section .
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Introducing a fictitious dimension in the coupled PDE system enables solving a mixed dimensional model
involving a 1D and a 2D heat equation. This technique is known as the "Fictitious Domain Method", and can also
be applied to other dimensions (1, 2 or 3D) in a similar manner.
Heat Transfer with Phase Change

A phase change in thermodynamics denotes the phenomenon where materials transit from one state (solid,
liquid, gas, plasma) to another, which only occurs at certain temperature and pressure and when sufficient
energy is added or removed from the system. The energy associated with the phase change, which is known as
the latent heat , is used to alters the molecular structure instead of creating a temperature change of the
material.
As an example, consider the following 1D model that describes the ice-to-water phase change along a rod of
ice. The rod has an initial temperature of , and a constant heat flux is applied at the left
end to melt the rod. At the right end the rod is assumed to be thermally insulated.
In the heat transfer model, instead of simulating the phase transition exactly at the phase change temperature
, we assume that the transition occurs in a temperature interval: to . The material phase
during the transition is then described by a smoothed step function , which denotes the ratio of the original
phase to the new phase within the material.
Define the smooth step function to describe the material phase.

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Within the temperature interval: , the equivalent density and conductivity are given by:
Specify the density and conductivity for ice and water.

178 »
Define the equivalent density and thermal conductivity .

182 »
The equivalent specific heat capacity , however, should include an extra term to account for the latent
heat required for the phase transition. Here denotes the distribution of the latent heat during the phase
change, and is approximated by a regularized delta function around the phase change temperature :
Specify the latent heat of fusion and the distribution of latent heat .
185 »
187 ›
Note that the integral of equals to the latent heat required for the phase change:
Check the equality of and the latent heat .

188 »
188 ›
The equivalent heat capacity is then given by:
Define the equivalent heat capacity .

189 »
Set up the initial temperature of the rod.

192 »
Set up a heat flux boundary condition at the left end with a constant heat flux .
194 »
194 ›
A default thermally insulated boundary condition is implicitly applied at the right end of the rod.

195 »
To better understand the effects of the latent heat on the phase change, we will compare the above result with a
solution that neglects the latent heat.
Define the equivalent heat capacity that neglects the latent heat of fusion.
197 »
Set up and solve the heat transfer PDE that ignores the latent hear.
198 »

200 »
202 ›
Heat Transfer with Model Order Reduction

Some times one want to re-run the same heat transfer simulation with different initial data. In this case model
order reduction can be of help. The idea behind model order reduction is make use of the discretization of the
PDE and find a similar discretization that can be time integrated much more efficiently. In order to perform a
model order reduction access to the discretization NDSolve makes is necessary. This is currently not possible on
the NDSolve level but requires a bit of programing and is explained in the section Model Order Reduction of
Transient PDEs with Stationary Coefficients and Stationary Boundary Conditions in the Finite Element
Programming tutorial.
Boundary Conditions in Heat Transfer

The most common boundary conditions in heat transfer modeling can be modeled with DirichletCondition ,
NeumannValue and PeriodicBoundaryCondition , and can be categorized in the following four types:
Dirichlet type boundary conditions. This type of boundary condition specifies the temperature at the
boundary, and can be modeled with DirichletCondition .
Neumann type boundary conditions. This type of boundary condition specifies the heat flux at the boundary,
and can be modeled with NeumannValue .
Robin type boundary conditions. This type of boundary condition specifies the relation between the temperature
and its normal derivatives at the boundary, and can modeled with a NeumannValue since Robin type boundary
conditions are technically generalized Neumann boundary conditions.
Periodic boundary conditions. This type of boundary condition specifies the temperature at one part of the
boundary to be the same at another part, and can be modeled with PeriodicBoundaryCondition .
Under these four types, the following boundary conditions are introduced:
Dirichlet Type
Temperature Surface Boundary Conditions
Neumann Type
Heat Flux Boundary Conditions
Neumann Zero Type (default setup when no boundary conditions are given)
Thermally Insulated Boundary Conditions
Symmetry Boundary Conditions
Outflow Boundary Conditions
Robin Type
Convective Boundary Conditions
Thermal Radiation Boundary Conditions
Periodic Type
Periodic Boundary Conditions
The following section describes several physical boundaries common in heat transfer and how they can be
modeled with the use of DirichletCondition , NeumannValue and PeriodicBoundaryCondition . For this purpose the
boundary condition currently discussed is always on the left hand side of the simulation domain. In some
examples additional boundary conditions are on the right hand side to better demonstrate the behaviour of the
boundary condition on the left hand side.
Temperature Surface Boundary Condition

Purpose
The purpose of a temperature surface boundary condition is to set a specific temperature on some part of the
boundary.
Formulation
With a specified temperature on the boundary , the temperature surface condition is given by:
A temperature surface boundary for the dependent variable modeled with DirichletCondition .
203 »
203 ›
Derivation
We speak of a temperature boundary condition when the surface temperature is prescribed on a boundary.
The surface temperature can either be a constant or time-dependent value, and is set with a DirichletCondition
in the heat transfer PDE model.
To model, for example, a heating wall that sends thermal energy into the domain, a transient surface
temperature can be set up at the left end. Note that a Neumann zero condition is implicitly applied at the
right end as a thermal insulated boundary.
Here a smoothed step function is used to described the profile of the surface temperature from
to . The parameters and are arbitrarily chosen to simulate the heating process.
Specify the surface temperature profile with a smoothed step function.

204 »
208 »
209 ›
Set up variables and parameters.

210 »
Set up the temperature boundary condition with DirichletCondition .

212 »
Set up the PDE with an undisturbed initial temperature field: .

213 »

214 »

215 »
217 ›
The simulation begins with an undisturbed domain where . As the surface temperature increases
at the left boundary, the excess thermal energy is then passed to the right and brings up the the temperature
throughout the domain. The speed of the heat transfer depends on the heat conductivity and the heat capacity
of the material.
Heat Flux Boundary Condition

Purpose
The purpose of a heat flux boundary condition is to model the amount of thermal energy flowing into or out of
some part of the boundary.
Formulation
With a prescribed heat flux on the boundary , the heat flux boundary condition is given by:
A heat flux boundary for the dependent variable modeled with NeumannValue .
218 »
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Derivation
A boundary where the heat flux normal to the boundary is specified and not equal to zero is called a heat
flux boundary:
By convention a negative sign is added in front of to indicates that the heat flux is specified opposite to the
outward normal . Therefore, a positive value of denotes the inward heat flux where the thermal energy enters
the domain, and a negative denotes an outward flux.
Fourier's law of thermal conduction (26) relates the heat flux with the temperature gradient :
Inserting (27) into (28), the heat flux boundary condition can be written as:
Note that the unit of a heat flux depends on the dimension of the boundary. In 1D ( ), 2D ( ) and 3D
domain ( ), has a unit of , and , respectively.
In the following example a transient heat flux is applied on the left boundary when to heat up the
domain.

220 »
The profile of the heat flux is defined as:
Set up the heat flux boundary at the left end with NeumannValue .
222 »
223 ›

224 »

225 »

226 »
228 ›
With the heat flux applied on the left boundary, thermal energy flows across the boundary and gradually
heats up the domain. The heat flux is turned off at time . The uneven temperature field is then
smoothed out over time by the internal heat transfer.
Note that the value of the heat flux is related to the temperature gradient by Fourier's law: .
That is, the heat flux directly controls the temperature gradient normal to the boundary.
Thermally Insulated Boundary Condition

Purpose
The purpose of a thermally insulated boundary condition is to model a boundary where there is no heat flux
across it.
Formulation
A thermally insulated boundary condition is given by:
A thermally insulated boundary for the dependent variable modeled with NeumannValue .
229 »
229 ›
If on some part of the boundary no boundary condition is set an implicit Neumann zero boundary condition is
used.
Derivation
A thermally insulated condition denotes a boundary where there is no heat flux across it:
Inserting (29) into the heat flux boundary condition (30), then the thermally insulated boundary condition can
be written as:
In the following example an insulated boundary is placed on the left hand boundary, and a constant heat flux
is added on the right end to serve as a heat source.

230 »
To model a thermally insulated boundary condition the NeumannValue is set to at the left end.
232 »
232 ›
If no boundary condition is specified on any part of the boundary then by default a Neumann zero boundary
condition is implicitly used. This implies that the thermally insulated boundary is the default boundary condition
used if no boundary condition is specified at a given boundary.
Set up a constant heat flux on the right hand boundary.

233 »
233 ›

234 »

235 »
236 »
238 ›
With a constant heat flux enforced on the right boundary, the temperature gradually increases within the
domain. On the insulated boundary at the left end, however, the temperature gradient remains at zero at all
times.
Since the temperature gradient is related to the heat flux by Fourier's law: , a zero
temperature gradient implies a zero heat flux on the boundary (i.e. thermal insulated boundary).
Symmetry Boundary Condition

Purpose
A symmetry boundary condition is used when the computational domain, and the expected temperature field,
have mirror symmetry along an axis of the simulation domain.
Formulation
The symmetry boundary condition is given by:
A symmetry boundary for the dependent variable modeled with NeumannValue .

239 »
239 ›
used.
Derivation
A symmetry boundary condition is used to reduce the extent of the computational domain to a symmetric sub-
domain of the full physical model geometry. This allows for a faster solution process with a lower memory
requirement.
Consider the case of solving the temperature field of a 1D system from to . If the temperature pattern
is expected to have a mirror symmetry along , we can efficiently construct the simulation domain with
only the left half of the system. Then a symmetry boundary condition should be applied at .
Due to the symmetry, the temperature gradient at the symmetry boundary will remain at zero at all time, which
implies a zero heat flux across the boundary. Therefore, a symmetry boundary condition is equivalent to a
thermally insulated boundary condition.
Outflow Boundary Condition

Purpose
If the heat transfer occurs in a fluid medium where the flow velocity , then an outflow boundary condition
is used to model an outlet where heat is transferred out of the domain by fluid flow.
Formulation
When modeling heat transfer in a fluid medium, the outflow boundary condition at the outlet is given by:
An outflow boundary for the dependent variable modeled with NeumannValue .

240 »
240 ›
used.
Derivation
When modeling heat transfer with a fluid flow, the diffusion heat flux is set to zero at the flow
outlet boundary. This condition means that the temperature field of the flow outside the domain is assumed to
have no impact on the flow inside the modeling domain .
The outflow boundary condition can only be applied on fully-developed flows. That is, at the flow outlet the
velocity profile is unchanging in the flow direction.
In a case where there is recirculation through the outlet boundary, which often happens for turbulent flow, the
reentering flow will affect the temperature field of the flow inside the domain and break the zero diffusion flux
assumption. In this situation the outflow boundary condition is no longer applicable.
Since the outflow boundary condition is essentially a Neumann zero condition, it will be implicitly applied if no
boundary condition is specified at a given boundary.
Convective Boundary Condition

Purpose
The purpose of a convective boundary condition is to model thermal energy transferred across a boundary
induced by a flow adjacent to the same part of the boundary.
Formulation
Given the profile of an external temperature and a heat transfer coefficient on the boundary , the
convective boundary condition is given by:
A convective boundary for the dependent variable modeled with NeumannValue .

241 »
241 ›
Derivation
With the existence of a fluid flowing adjacent to the boundary surface, part of the thermal energy will be
transferred across the boundary through the movement of fluid particles, which is known as convective heating
or cooling.
In 1701, Newton found that the rate of convective heat transfer between two media is proportional to their
temperature difference. The convective heat flux is therefore defined as:
Here denotes the temperature of the external fluid, and in units of is the convective heat
transfer coefficient. The heat transfer coefficient is determined experimentally and depends on material
properties like density , the thermal diffusivity and the flow situation of the external fluid such as viscosity
and Rayleigh number .
The approximate range of the convection heat transfer coefficients are presented in following table:
Several empirical based formulas are also built [31,32] to estimate the heat transfer coefficient in different
situations.
Inserting (33) into the heat flux boundary condition (34), the convective boundary condition can be written as:
In the following example a constant external flow at is applied on the left boundary to heat up
the domain of an initial temperature field at . The convection heat transfer through the boundary is
modeled by the convective boundary condition with a given heat transfer coefficient .
Set up the convective boundary condition with NeumannValue .

242 »
242 ›

243 »

244 »

245 »
247 ›
With the external flow flowing left of the left boundary, excess thermal energy is transferred across the boundary
into the domain. Since the convective heat flux is proportional to the temperature difference across the
boundary: , the temperature gradient at the left boundary
will gradually decrease as the temperature at the boundary approaches the external temperature .
Thermal Radiation Boundary Condition

Purpose
The purpose of a thermal radiation boundary condition is to model heating or cooling through radiation on some
part of the boundary.
Formulation
Given an ambient temperature , the surface emissivity and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant on the
boundary , the thermal radiation boundary condition can be written as:
A thermal radiation boundary condition for the dependent variable modeled with NeumannValue .
248 »
248 ›
Derivation
All bodies with a temperature above the absolute zero (i.e. ) will constantly emit
thermal energy through electromagnetic radiation. The amount of radiation depends on both body temperature
and surface condition. For a perfect thermal radiator, a black body, the Stefan-Boltzmann law states that the
emitting heat flux is proportional to the fourth power of the body's absolute temperature:
where is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.
In practice, however, the actually emitted heat flux is less than that of the black body radiation by a fraction
known as the "surface emissivity". The value of the emissivity is and depends on factors such as
physical properties and surface condition of the radiative body.
The Stefan-Boltzmann law can be rewritten as:
Based on (35) we can formulate a radiation boundary condition by inspecting the net radiative heat flux
across a boundary:
The emitted, outgoing radiative flux from a boundary depends on its surface temperature and the
emissivity by:
At the same time, a boundary will absorb the radiation coming from the environment. This absorbed, incoming
radiative flux is given by:
Here is the ambient temperature and is the emissivity of the environment. Note that an extra term ,
the surface absorptivity factor, is multiplied on the right hand side to account for the absorptivity of the
boundary. This term denotes the ratio of the actual absorbed radiative flux to the total arriving flux.
Therefore, the net radiative heat flux across the boundary is given by:
To satisfy the thermodynamic equilibrium, for an arbitrary body the absorptivity should be equal to its
emissivity . This is known as the Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation [36].
The equation (37) is then simplified to:
Assuming that the ambient surrounding behaves as a black body with the emissivity , the equation can
be further simplified as:
Inserting (38) into the heat flux boundary condition (39), then the radiative boundary condition is given by:
or
Note that the above derivation is performed based on the absolute temperature. That means the temperature
terms in (40) have the unit of Kelvin .
To apply a radiation boundary condition in Celsius , an unit conversion should be done in (41) :
Here denotes the temperature of absolute zero.
As an example consider the ambient temperature of and a surface emissivity at the left
hand boundary. The net radiative heat flux across the boundary is modeled by the radiation boundary condition.

249 »
Set up the thermal radiation boundary condition in the unit of Celsius .

251 »
251 ›

252 »

253 »

254 »
256 ›
Due to the lower ambient temperature on the left end, the net radiative heat flux flows out of the system
from the left hand boundary, which gradually cools down the domain.
Similar as the convective boundary condition, the temperature gradient on the left boundary depends on the
temperature difference across the boundary, and can be calculated by Fourier's law:
.
Inspect the temperature gradient on the left hand boundary at .
257 »
257 ›
The temperature gradient on the left end is shown to be .
Periodic Boundary Condition

Purpose
The purpose of a periodic boundary condition is to map the temperature from one part of a boundary to another
in order to model periodicity of the domain.
Formulation
Given a function that maps the temperature from the periodic boundary to the targeted boundary
, the periodic boundary condition can be written as:
A periodic boundary condition for the dependent variable modeled with PeriodicBoundaryCondition .
258 »
Derivation
A periodic boundary condition is applied to compute heat transfer in spatially periodic domains. Given a targeted
boundary , the temperature on a periodic boundary can be mapped to the temperature
on the targeted surface by a prescribed function . The boundary condition is set by the
PeriodicBoundaryCondition in the heat transfer PDE model.
As an example a ring heater is modeled where a thin film is inserted to serve as a heat source. It is possible to
perform the simulation with a 1D domain by using the periodic boundary condition.
The ring heater is converted into a 1D model with the length which is the perimeter of the ring. To
simulate the heating process the temperature of the heating film is specified at the left boundary. At the
right hand boundary a periodic boundary condition is applied to map the boundary temperature
to the target boundary .
Set up the PeriodicBoundaryCondition at the right end with the mapping function .
260 »
Here a smoothed step function is used to prescribe a temperature profile on the heating film. The
parameters and are chosen arbitrarily to fit the parameters of heat transfer model.

263 »
Specify the temperature profile of the heating film at the left end.
265 »
270 »
270 ›

271 »

272 »

273 »
275 ›
The simulation begins with an undisturbed domain where . During the heating process, the
temperature on the periodic boundary has been mapped to the left hand boundary while the
temperature of the heating film increases. The thermal energy is then transferred from both ends and
gradually heats up the domain.
As an alternative in this example the PeriodicBoundaryCondition could be replaces by using the

DirichletCondition from the left boundary also at the right boundary
Alternative setup to replace the periodic boundary condition.

276 »
It is also worth noting that if the left hand side had been any other boundary condition, the
PeriodicBoundaryCondition would have projected that to the right. In other words the PeriodicBoundaryCondition
projects whatever boundary condition it finds to the target.
Appendix
Special Cases of the Heat Equation

Stationary case
If the temperature field is in a steady state, the transient term in (42) vanishes and the heat equation simplifies
to:
Heat Equation in Cylindrical Coordinates

When modeling a heat transfer problem, sometimes it is not convenient to describe the model in Cartesian
coordinates . The heat equation may also be expressed using a cylindrical or spherical coordinate
system.
A graphics showing cylindrical coordinates:
In the cylindrical coordinate system , and denote the radial, azimuthal and vertical directions, respectively.
In terms of the Cartesian coordinates , the cylindrical coordinates are defined by:
or
By inserting the coordinates relation (43) into (44), the heat equation can be expressed in cylindrical coordinates
as:
If the heat transfer within a model is rotationally symmetric about the axis, the resulting temperature field
will be invariant in the direction. The equation (45) then simplifies to:
In that case, a 3D heat transfer problem can be modeled in a 2D domain by making use of this symmetric
property. This type of model is known as an axisymmetric model.
HeatTransferPDEComponent can generate the axisymmetric form of the heat transfer equation (46) by specifying
the parameter “RegionSymmetry” and setting it to “Axisymmetric”.
8»
8›
Examples of making use of the cylindrical coordinate system with a 2D axisymmetric model can be founded in
the separate Heat Transfer Verification Tests notebook: one time independent 2D example and one time
dependent 2D example. Several more examples are to found in the HeatTransferPDEComponent reference page.
Heat Equation in Spherical Coordinates

A graphics showing spherical coordinates:
In the spherical coordinate system , and denote the radial, azimuthal and polar directions, respectively. In
terms of the Cartesian coordinates: , the spherical coordinates are defined by:
or
By inserting the coordinates relation (47) into (48), the heat equation can be expressed in the spherical
coordinate system as:
The Smoothing Characteristic of the Diffusion Equation

The basic behaviour of a diffusion equation is smoothing. To see the effect set up initial conditions that are
discontinuous at .
277 »
278 »
278 ›
The PDE for the temperature field is given by:

279 »
280 »

281 »
Visualize the initial conditions and the smoothed out solution.

282 »
282 ›
In a short time the sharp tip of the discontinuous initial condition at x=1/2 has been smoothed out. This
smoothing effect is a major characteristic of the diffusion equation and therefore also of the heat equation.
Modeling Heat Sources using Element Markers
The most accurate and efficient method to deal with heat sources is by making use of element markers as then
the mesh will have a specific subregion for the heat source which will result in an accurate solution. Element
marker and their use in meshes is explained in detail in the section Element Marker in the Element Mesh
Generation tutorial.
In the following 2D example we introduce a rectangular heat source to heat up the domain.
Create and visualize a boundary element mesh with an internal boundary separating the heat source from the remaining domain.
285 »
288 ›
Next we specify region markers with the "RegionMarker" option for ToElementMesh . To do so a coordinate within
the heat source should be given, as well as an integer marker. Optionally, an additional maximum cell measure
can be specified to refine the source region.
Create and visualize an element mesh with internal markers.

289 »
290 ›
An alternative to generate the mesh is to make use of the Boolean region functions and specify the no region
holes should be inserted. The same region marker process from above is used.
Specify a region.
291 »
Set up the mesh.

292 »
293 ›

294 »
Set the source strength .

296 »
Set up a heat source with the element marker.

297 »
Define the heat transfer PDE with a volumetric source term and an initial temperature field .
298 »

299 »
300 »
303 »
307 ›
This result agrees with the one that didn't make use of element makers, which is shown in the section:
Volumetric Heat Source. For large complicates geometries the use of region element markers will be easier to set
up and compute the solution more efficiently.
Conservation Laws with Discontinuous PDE coefficients
To explain why the heat transfer PDE holds for discontinuous density/velocity field, we start with the mass
conservation:
Assume that the density and the flow velocity are discontinuous at the interface ℐ:
Since there is no mass creation or destruction on the interface ℐ, the mass flux should still be the same on both
sides of ℐ:
That is, the mass flux should be continuous throughout the domain. We can then apply the divergence
theorem [49] on the equation (50) leading to:
Since the domain is completely arbitrary, we can discard the integral and yield the mass conservation equation
in the differential form:
That means the mass conservation equation (51) also holds true for the domain with discontinuous
density/velocity field.
The heat equation is essentially an energy conservation equation, and can be derived in a similar way by
substituting the density in (52) with the internal energy . Therefore, the heat transfer model presented in the
tutorial can be applied on both continuous and discontinuous density/velocity fields.
Possible Issues and Workarounds for Modeling Heat Pulses

In the section: Heat Transfer with Events, we mentioned that it is possible to use an If statement to model heat
pulses with time-dependent heat transfer model. However, when pulse durations become very small, the default
time-stepping algorithm of NDSolve may fail to detect the prescribed heat pulse.
In the following section we will demonstrate the issue with an example, followed by two workarounds for
modeling heat pulses.
Consider a 1D time-dependent heat transfer model with periodic heat pulses applied in the middle part of the
domain. During time there are a total of five pulses with a duration of .
Set the periodic heat pulses using an If statement.

308 »
311 ›
Define the 1D domain .

312 »
To model the cooling of the domain, the temperature at both ends are fixed at .
Set up a temperature surface boundary condition at both ends of the domain.

313 »
Define an area in the domain in which to activate the heat pulse in.
314 »
For the demonstration purpose the thermal conductivity , the density and the heat capacity are set to one.
Solve the time-dependent heat transfer PDE with periodic heat pulses .
315 »
Inspect the temperature field.

316 »
318 ›
Note that without using options, NDSolve missed the last two heat pulses at and .
Next we present two possible workarounds to deal with this issue.
Method 1 - Reduce MaxStepFraction

The first method is to specify a smaller time step for the time integration process by NDSolve . The option
"MaxStepFraction" allows user to set the maximum fraction of the total time range to cover in a single step.
Solve the PDE and make sure that NDSolve uses at least 100 steps for the time integration.
319 »

320 »
322 ›
With a smaller time step NDSolve successfully captured all five heat pulses during .
Method 2 - Using WhenEvent
Another, better, approach is to use WhenEvent to specify the heat pulses. The use of WhenEvent has the distinct
advantage that NDSolve has special mechanisms build in to detect the pulses during the time integration. This
mechanism may not be available when modeling heat pulses with an If or similar statement.
More details about the usage of WhenEvent and its event detection method can be found here.
Set the periodic heat pulses using WhenEvent .

323 »
Solve the time-dependent heat transfer PDE with periodic heat pulses .
325 »
In this approach the heat pulses is treated as a discrete variable by NDSolve , that is, it only changes at
discrete times during the time integration. Note also, that not time integration step size reduction is necessary to
obtain a solution.

326 »
328 ›
With the usage of WhenEvent , NDSolve successfully captured all five heat pulses during .
Nomenclature
References
1. Bilbao, Stefan and Hamilton, Brian. Directional Source Modeling In Wave-Based Room Acoustics Simulation. IEEE,
2017.
2. Peskin, Charles. The Immersed Boundary Method. Cambridge University, 2002.
3. Churchill, Stuart W. and Chu, Humbert H.S. Correlating equations for laminar and turbulent free convection from a
vertical plate. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 18 (11): 1323–1329, 1975.
4. Sukhatme, S.P. A Textbook on Heat Transfer (Fourth ed.). Universities Press. pp.257–258, 2005.
5. Riedl, M. Optical Design Fundamentals for Infrared Systems (Second ed.). SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA, 2001.
6. Holman, J. P. Heat Transfer Tenth Edition, McGraw-Hill. pp. 111, Example 3-10 (2008).
7. Weisstein, Eric W. Divergence Theorem, MathWorld-A Wolfram Web Resource.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DivergenceTheorem.html.
8. Onsager, L. Physical Review. 37, 405–426, (1931); 38, 2265–2279, (1931).
9. Casimir, H. B. G. Reviews of Modern Physics. 17, 343–350, (1945).
10. Hahn, D. W. and Özişik, M. N. Heat Conduction, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, ch.15 (2012).
Related Tech Notes

Heat Transfer Verification Tests
Heat Transfer Model Collection
PDEModels Overview
Feedback Top
Introduction for Programmers Introductory Book
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12/8/22, 8:19 PM Heat Transfer—Wolfram Language Documentation

WOLFRAM LANGUAGE & SYSTEM

PDE MODELS MONOGRAPH

Boundary Conditions in Heat Transfer

To get high fidelity visualizations comment out the rasterization process.

Load the finite element package.

Introduction to Heat Equation

Heat Equation Derivation

PDE for heat transfer in a medium with flow.

PDE for heat transfer in a solid medium.

Heat Transfer Model Setup

The inputs needed for an heat transfer model are

the temperature variable

Set up a 1D static heat transfer model.

Set up a 2D static heat transfer model.

Set up a 1D time dependent heat transfer model.

Model Parameter Setup

Define and visualize the smoothed step function .

Basic Heat Transfer Example

Set up a rectangular domain with a width of and a height of .

Define the model parameters.

Set up the convective boundary condition on the top surface.

Set up the thermal radiation boundary condition on the top surface.

Solve the heat transfer PDE model.

Visualize the steady-state temperature distribution.

Set up model variables and model parameters.

Volumetric Heat Source

Define a 2D domain and a rectangular source region.

Set up a simplified heat source .

Solve the PDE with NDSolveValue .

Make an animation of the solution using Plot and ListAnimate .

Layer Heat Source

Here is a Dirac delta function at the source location .

Set up the regularized delta functions centered on the source region.

Define a 2D domain and the source region at .

Inspect the mesh spacing and set the regularization parameter .

Solve the PDE with NDSolveValue .

Make an animation of the solution using Plot and ListAnimate .

Define a 2D domain and a curved source region.

Generate meshes of boundary and the curved source region.

Join the two meshes.

Set the layer heat source with a curved source region.

Solve the PDE with NDSolveValue .

Make an animation of the solution using Plot and ListAnimate .

Point Heat Source

Set up the regularized delta functions centered at the source point .

Generate the mesh that contains the source point .

Solve the PDE with NDSolveValue .

Make an animation of the solution using Plot and ListAnimate .

Anisotropic and Orthotropic Heat Transfer

As an example, consider a 2D composite material with layered-like structure:

Set the thermal conductivity tensor of the orthotropic material.

Set a heat source.

Solve the heat transfer PDE model.

Visualize the heat transfer in an orthotropic material.

Nonlinear Heat Transfer

Set up the model variables.

Set up a nonlinear conductivity coefficient.

Solve the nonlinear PDE using NDSolveValue .