EME4016 Heat Transfer

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2.4 Unsteady state Conduction

If a solid body is suddenly subjected to a change in environment, some time must elapse
before an equilibrium temperature condition will prevail in the body. In transient heating
or cooling process which takes place in the interim period before equilibrium is
established, the analysis must take into account the change in internal energy of the body
with time. Besides, the boundary conditions must be adjusted to match the physical
situation, which is apparent in the unsteady state heat transfer problem.

2.1 Lumped capacitance system

Lump capacitance method can be used for analysis of transient heat conduction where the
temperature is considered to be uniform in a material. In general, the smaller the physical
size of the body, the more realistic the assumption of a uniform temperature throughout;
in the limit a differential volume could be employed as in the derivation of the general
heat conduction equation.

The temperature distribution in a material depends on the thermal conductivity of the
material and the heat transfer conditions from the surface of the material to the
surrounding fluid. If the resistance to heat transfer by conduction was small compared
with the convection resistance at the surface, the major temperature gradient would occur
through the fluid layer at the surface. Hence, the lumped-heat-capacity analysis assumed
that the internal resistance of the body is negligible in comparison with the external
resistance.


figure 2-1 (Notation in the diagram is equivalent to t in your text book)


The convection heat loss from the body is evidenced as a decrease in the internal energy
of the body, as shown in figure 2-1. Thus,

q = h A (T T

) = c V
t
T

(2.1)

where A is the surface area for convection and V is the volume. The initial condition is
written
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T = T
o
at t = 0

so that the solution to equation 4-4 is



T T

T
0
T

= e
[hA/ cV]t
(2.2)

where T

is the temperature of the convection environment. The analogy between the

thermal system and an electric system is shown in figure 2-1b. The energy stored in the
thermal capacitance is dissipated through the resistance 1/hA when the switch is opened.
In the thermal system, energy is stored, while in electrical system electric charge is
stored. The flow of energy in thermal system is heat, while in electrical system it is
current. With this analogy, the time constant for the thermal system can be defined as


t
=
c V
hA


The lumped-heat-capacity analysis may be expected to yield reasonable estimates within
about 5% when the following condition is met:


h(V/A)
k
< 0.1 (2.3)

If one considers the ratio V/A = L as a characteristic dimension of the solid, the
dimensionless group in equation 2.3 is called the Biot number:

hL/k = Biot number = Bi (2.4)


2.2 Spatial effects

There are situations when lump capacitance method is not applicable and it is necessary
to consider the spatial effects on the temperature distribution for a transient problem.



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figure 2-2

To analyze a transient heat-transfer problem, we could proceed by setting up the general
heat conduction equation and solve the non-dimensional equation by the separation of
variable method. Consider the infinite plate of thickness 2L shown in figure 2-2. The
differential equation is



2
T
x
2
=
1
t
T

(2.5)
To solve Equation (2.5), it is necessary to specify one initial conditions and two boundary
conditions. For a typical transient problem, the initial condition presuming a uniform
temperature distribution at t =0 and boundary conditions may be stated as:

T(x,0) = Ti

0
0
=

= x
x
T


) T ) t , L ( T ( h
x
T
k
L x

=
=

The equation may be arranged in a more convenient form by non-dimensionalizing
Equation (2.5) to become


Fo x

=

*
*
*
2
2
(2.6)







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Whereby the dimensionless variables are defined as:

=
T T
T T
*
i

(2.7)
L
x
* x =

Fo
L
t
* t = =
2

The initial and boundary conditions become

*) t , ( * Bi
* x
*
* x
*
) , x ( *
*
*
x
x
1
0
1 0
1
0

=
=
=



Assuming a product solution *(x*, Fo) = X(x*)T(Fo), Equation (2.6) produces two
ordinary differential equations.


The final solution is therefore

(2.8)

It is found that the dimensionless temperature profiles and heat flows may all be
expressed in terms of two dimensionless parameters called the Biot and Fourier numbers:

Biot number = Bi = hl/k (2.9)
Fourier number = Fo = t/l
2
(2.10)

In these parameters l designates a characteristic dimension of the body; for the plate it is
the half thickness, whereas for the cylinder and sphere it is the radius. The Biot number
compares the relative magnitudes of surface convection and internal conduction
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resistances to heat transfer. The Fourier number compares a characteristic body
dimension with an approximate thermal diffusion for a given t.



2.3 One-Term Approximate Solution

For Fo > 0.2, the final solution in section 2.2, Equation (2.8) can be approximated by the
first term of the series.





Hence, from the temperature distribution, the change in thermal energy storage is given
as

|
|

\
|
=
=

*
o i
st
sin
) T T ( cV Q
Q E

1
1
1



Besides plane surfaces, cylindrical and spherical surfaces will be covered during the
lectures. Table 1 and 2 are given at the Appendix for the constants in the approximate
solutions.

2.4 Transient heat flow in semi-infinite solid


figure 2-3

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A semi-infinite solid is a very thick wall where one side is exposed to fluid temperature
but the other side remains unaffected by the fluid temperature. Consider the semi-infinite
solid shown in figure 2-3 maintained at some initial temperature T
i
. The surface
temperature is suddenly lowered and maintained at a temperature T
o
. For constant
properties, the differential equation for the temperature distribution T(x, t) is



2
T
x
2
=
1


t
T

(2.11)

The boundary and initial conditions are

T(x, 0) = T
i

T(0, t) = T
o
for t > 0

This is a problem that may be solved by similarity method.


The solution is given as


o i
o
T T
T ) t , x ( T

= erf
t
x
2
(2.12)

where the Gauss error function is defined as


erf
t
x
2
=
2

t
x
d e

2
0
2

The temperature distribution is given in figure 2-4.
Error function and complementary error functions are shown in the Appendix, figure 2-8.

The heat flow at any x position may be obtained from

q
x
= - kA
T
x


Performing the partial differentiation of equation (2.12) gives


T
x
= (T
i
T
o
)
2

e
t
x
4
2

x

|
|

\
|
t
x
2

=
t
T T
o i

e
t
x
4
2

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At the surface (x = 0) the heat flow is

q
o
= -
( )
t
T T kA
o i

(2.13)


figure 2-4


Constant heat flux on semi-infinite solid

For the same uniform initial temperature distribution, we could suddenly expose the
surface to a constant surface heat flux q
0
/A. The initial and boundary conditions on
equation 2.11 would then become

T(x, 0) = T
i
; q
0
/A = k


T
x

x = 0
for t > 0

The solution for this case is

T T
i
=
|
|

\
|
kA
/ t q
o
2
exp
|
|

\
|

t
x
4
2

q
0
x
kA
|
|

\
|

t
x
erf
2
1 (2.14)


Convection boundary conditions

In most practical situations, the transient heat conduction problem is connected with a
convection boundary condition at the surface of the solid. The boundary conditions for
the equation 2.11 must be modified to take into account this convection heat transfer at
the surface. For the semi-infinite solid problem, this would be

Heat convected into surface = heat conducted into surface

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hA(T

T)
x = 0
= k


T
x

x = 0
(2.15)

The solution for this problem is presented as

T T
i
T

T
i
=
|
|

\
|

t
x
erf
2
1 exp
|
|

\
|
+
2
2
k
t h
k
hx

|
|

\
|
|
|

\
|
+
k
t h
t
x
erf

2
1 (2.16)

This solution is presented in graphical form in figure 2-5. Solutions have been worked
out for other geometries..





figure 2-5




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Appendix



Table 1
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Table 2










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figure 2-6 Gauss error function and complementary error function


References:

1. F. P. Incropera, D. P. DeWitt, T. L. Bergman and A. S. Lavine, Introduction to Heat Transfer, 5
th

Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2007.

2. J. P. Holman, Heat Transfer, 9
th
Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2002.