Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x

DOI 10.1007/s12206-012-0202-4

Efficiency analysis of straight fin with variable heat transfer coefficient

and thermal conductivity
Somayyeh Sadri*, Mohammad Reza Raveshi and Shayan Amiri
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
(Manuscript Received June 29, 2011; Revised September 22, 2011; Accepted November 13, 2011)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abstract
In this study, one type of applicable analytical method, differential transformation method (DTM), is used to evaluate the efficiency
and behavior of a straight fin with variable thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient. Fins are widely used to enhance heat transfer between primary surface and the environment in many industrial applications. The performance of such a surface is significantly affected by variable thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient, particularly for large temperature differences. General heat transfer
equation related to the fin is derived and dimensionalized. The concept of differential transformation is briefly introduced, and then this
method is employed to derive solutions of nonlinear equations. Results are evaluated for several cases such as: laminar film boiling or
condensation, forced convection, laminar natural convection, turbulent natural convection, nucleate boiling, and radiation. The obtained
results from DTM are compared with the numerical solution to verify the accuracy of the proposed method. The effects of design parameters on temperature and efficiency are evaluated by some figures. The major aim of the present study, which is exclusive for this
article, is to find the effect of the modes of heat transfer on fin efficiency. It has been shown that for radiation heat transfer, thermal efficiency reaches its maximum value.
Keywords: Variable thermal conductivity; Variable heat transfer coefficient; Straight fin; Efficiency; Differential transformation method (DTM)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Introduction
Fins are physically designed to increase the surface area in
contact with the cooling fluid surrounding the purposed medium. Heat conduction analysis of fins is of great interest since
they are used in many industrial applications such as air conditioning units, processor/microprocessor cooling systems, refrigeration systems, heat exchangers, gas turbine blades and
car radiators. Several analytical solutions are available to predict the temperature distribution of fins [1, 2]. These solutions
are based on the assumption that all the thermo-physical properties, including thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient, are constant.
For most actual situations with a high temperature difference between the fin base and its tip, the variation of the thermal conductivity of the fin material with temperature should
be taken into account. For instance, the heat pipe/fin space
radiators have fins with temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. Variable thermal conductivity introduces nonlinearity, which directly affects the energy balance equation and its
*

Corresponding author. Tel.: + 98911226718

E-mail address: S.sadri595@gmail.com

Recommended by Associate Editor Man-Yeong Ha

KSME & Springer 2012

solution. Aziz et al. [3] used the regular perturbation method

and a numerical method to represent a closed form solution
for a straight convecting fin with linearly varying temperaturedependent thermal conductivity. Adomian's decomposition
method (ADM) [4], homotopy perturbation method (HPM)
[5] and homotopy analysis method (HAM) [6] have been used
to provide an analytical solution for these kinds of nonlinear
differential equations and determine the fin's efficiency. A
comparison among these methods shows that HAM can predict the temperature distribution of the fin more accurately
than the others.
The heat transfer coefficient is a function of temperature
profiles in some important modes of heat transfer like laminar
and turbulent natural convection, condensation, radiation, and
especially boiling. The dependence of the heat transfer coefficient on temperature is usually expressed in a power-law-type
form in which its power depends on a heat transfer mode.
Initially, Laor et al. [7] used this type of dependence to solve
the heat conduction problems for a single fin. Later, Lesnic et
al. [8] applied ADM to determine the temperature distribution
within a straight fin with temperature-dependent heat transfer
coefficient. Dul'kin et al. [9] presented a generalized closedform solution in terms of the ordinary functions of the heat
conduction problem for a straight or spine fin. In this work,

1284

S. Sadri et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

heat transfer coefficient is varied as a power-law function of

the local temperature difference between the fin and the material. In another work from these authors [10], the recurrent
direct solution was derived using the inversion of the closedform solution that was obtained in their first work. The obtained expressions seem to be simple and convenient for the
engineering design of the fins and finned surfaces.
To the authors best knowledge, very few researches in the
literature considered the variation of both thermal conductivity
and heat transfer coefficient along the fin surface, and the
analytical solutions in these cases are very limited. Sohrabpour et al. [11] used a method of temperature correlated profiles to obtain the solution of the optimum convective fin
when the thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient are
functions of temperature. In this article, the authors showed
that, the effect of temperature dependence of heat transfer
coefficients is important in the design of optimum fins. Recently, HAM, HPM and ADM have been compared by Khani
et al. [12] in optimizing fin performance. The results show that
in many thermo-geometric parameters of the fin, HAM is
more effective than the other two methods for solving the
nonlinear problem. The other approximated analytical solution
has been used by Kim et al. [13] to solve the fin nonlinear
problem with variable thermo-physical properties.
Zhou [14] presented a powerful analytical method called the
differential transformation method (DTM). This method is
based on the Taylor series expansion. This method has been
used to solve various linear and nonlinear differential equations in engineering [15-17]. The main advantage of this
method is its direct applicability to solve differential equations
without requiring any linearization, discretization or perturbation. Furthermore, DTM has high accuracy and fast convergence. Joneidi and Rashidi [18, 19] used DTM to find the
efficiency of convective straight fins with temperaturedependent thermal conductivity. In order to show the effectiveness of DTM, the results obtained from DTM are compared with HAM's solution [6] and exact solutions. The obtained results show that DTM is very effective and convenient
for solving nonlinear ordinary and partial differential equations.
In the current article, the problem of straight fin with a
power-law-type temperature-dependent heat transfer coefficient and linearly temperature-dependent thermal conductivity
which includes all kinds of usual heat transfer is considered.
The main objective of the present study is to find the effect of
the variation of thermo-physical properties and thermogeometric parameters of the fin on temperature profile and
efficiency. In order to validate the approach, the results have
been compared with the numerical solution presented in the
figures and tables.

2. Analysis of the differential transformation method

Let x(t ) be analytic in a domain D and let t = ti represent
any point in D . The function x(t ) is then represented by one

power series whose center is located at ti . The Taylor series

expansion function of x(t ) is of the form:
(t ti ) k d k x(t )

k ! dt k t = t
k =0
i

x(t ) =

t D.

(1)

The particular case when ti = 0 in Eq. (1) is referred to as

the Maclaurin series of x(t ) and is expressed as:
t k d k x(t )

k
k = 0 k ! dt
t =0

x(t ) =

t D.

(2)

The differential transformation of the function x(t ) is defined as follows:

H k d k x(t )

k
k = 0 k ! dt
t =0

X (k ) =

(3)

where x(t ) and X (k ) are the original function and the

transformed function, respectively. The differential spectrum
of X (k ) is confined within the interval t [0, H ] , where
H is a constant. The differential inverse transform of X (k ) is
defined as follows:
k

t
x (t ) = X ( k ) .
k =0 H

(4)

It is clear that the concept of differential transformation is

based upon the Taylor series expansion. The values of the
function X (k ) at values of argument k are referred to as
discrete, i.e. X (0) is known as the zero discrete, X (1) as the
first discrete, etc. With more discretes available, it is possible
to restore the unknown function more precisely. The function
x(t ) consists of the T-function X (k ) , and its value is given by
k
the sum of the T-function with ( t H ) as its coefficient. In
real applications, at the right choice of constant H , the discretes of spectrum reduce rapidly with larger values of argument k . The function x(t ) is expressed by a finite series and
Eq. (4) can be rewritten as:
k

n
t
x (t ) = X ( k ) .
k =0 H

(5)

The fundamental mathematical operations performed by the

differential transformation method are listed in Table 1.

3. Description of the problem

The problem of the one-dimensional straight fin is considered in Fig. 1 by assuming a temperature-dependent thermal
conductivity and heat transfer coefficient with an arbitrary
cross-sectional area A c , perimeter P and length b . Temperatures of base surface and surrounding fluid are T b and T a ,

S. Sadri et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

Table 1. The fundamental operations of differential transform method

[18, 20].
Original function

Transformed function

x(t ) = f ( x) g (t )

X (k ) = F (k ) G (k )

df (t )
dt

X (k ) = (k + 1) F (k + 1)

d 2 f (t )
dt 2

X (k ) = (k + 1)(k + 2) F (k + 2)

x(t ) =
x(t ) =

x(t ) = exp(t )

X (k ) =

k
k!

coefficient at the fins base temperature and exponent n is

the parameter describing the mode of heat transfer. Values of
n for usual modes of heat transfer are n = 1/ 4 for laminar
film boiling or condensation, n = 0 for forced convection,
n = 1/ 4 for laminar natural convection, n = 1/ 3 for turbulent
natural convection, n = 2 for nucleate boiling and n = 3 for
radiation.
By introducing the following dimensionless quantities:
=

X (k ) = F (l )G (k l )

x(t ) = f (t ) g (t )

l =0

x(t ) = t m

1 k = m
X ( k ) = ( k m) =
0 k m

x(t ) = f (t ) m

X (k ) = F (l ) m1 F (k l )

x
T Ta
k (T )
, = , k ( ) =
, = (Tb Ta ),
L
Tb Ta
ka

hb PL2
.
ka Ac

N=

1285

(9)

Eq. (6) is rewritten as Eq. (10):

l =0

d
d
( k ( )
) = N 2 n +1 ,
d
d

0 < <1.

(10)

The dimensionless boundary conditions for the present

problem are:
d
(0) = 0
d

(1) = 1

at the Fins tip

(11a)

at the Fins base

(11b)

Finally, the energy balance equation becomes:

2

(1 + )

Fig. 1. Schematic of the problem.

respectively. The fins tip is assumed to be insulated in x = 0 .

In this situation, the one-dimensional energy-balance equation is given as [13]:

d
d 2
2 n +1
+
=N .
d 2
d

(12)

The actual heat transfer of a fin can be obtained by integrating the convection heat loss from the fins surface:
b

Ac

d
dT
(k (T ) ) Ph(T )(T Ta ) = 0,
dx
dx

0< x<b

(6)

in which k (T ) and h (T ) are temperature-dependent thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient, respectively.
For most engineering applications, a linear variation of thermal conductivity and a power form variation of heat transfer
coefficient with temperature may be assumed as follows:

Q = Ph(T Ta )dx .

(13)

The fin efficiency, the most important characteristic of the

fins, is studied in the engineering of heat and mass transfers
problems. The fin efficiency is defined as the actual heat transferred by the fin, divided by the heat transfer if the fin were
isothermal:
b

k (T ) = ka [1 + (T Ta )]

Tb Ta

h(T ) = hb

T Ta

(7)

Ph(T T )dx
a

Q
= 0
= d .
Qideal
Pbh(Tb Ta )
0

(14)

(8)

where k a is the fins thermal conductivity at the temperature

of the ambient fluid and is the parameter describing the
variation of the thermal conductivity. hb is the heat transfer

4. Solution using differential transformation method

Here, we take the differential transform of Eq. (12) using
the related definition in Table 1, with respect to , and considering H = 1 leads to:

1286
k

S. Sadri et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

(3) = 0

[ (l )(k l + 1)(k l + 2) ( k l + 2) +

(l + 1) (l + 1)(k l + 1) (k l + 1)]
l =0

+ (k + 1)( k + 2) ( k + 2) = A

(15)

( k l )( (l ))

1
4

l =o

N (k )
2

A=

(k l )( (l ))

1
4

l =o

(k l )( (l ))

1
3

l =o

( k l ) (l n ) ( n )
l =0

n =0

l =0

n =0

j =0

(k l ) (l n ) (n j ) ( j )

for laminar film

boiling or condensation
for forced convection
for laminar natural convection
for turbulent natu- (16)
ral convection
for nucleate boiling
for radiation

By substituting these terms to the main series of DTM,

closed form of solutions, are obtained. For nucleate boiling we
have:
( ) = a +

(20)

( ) = a +

(17a)
(17b)

in which a is constant and other can be obtained accordance

of a . Here, we present some terms of series for two different
cases: nucleate boiling and radiation because of their extensive
application. First, for nucleate boiling in which n = 2 series
terms are:

1 N 2a 4 2

21+ a

1 N 2a 2
N 2a5
N 2a6
N 2a7 2 4
4
2
(2 N 2 a 5 + N 2 a 6 2
) + ...
3
24 (1 + a )
1+ a
1+ a
1+ a

(21)
In the next step, substituting the boundary condition from
Eq. (11b) into Eqs. (20) and (21), the value of a can be found
for nucleate boiling and radiation as follows:

(1) = a +

1 N 2a3 1 N 4 a5
1 N 6 a 7 (3 + 2 2 a 2 )
+
+
2 1 + a 8 (1 + a )3 80
(1 + a )5

1 N 8 a 9 (49 + 20 a 66 2 a 2 + 40 3a 3 )

+ ... = 1
4480
(1 + a )7

2 3

1 N a
2 1+ a

(1) = a +

(3) = 0
(4) =

1 N 2a3 2 1 N 4a5
1 N 6 a 7 (3 + 2 2 a 2 ) 6
+
4 +

3
2 1+ a
8 (1 + a )
80
(1 + a)5

1 N 8 a 9 (49 + 20 a 66 2 a 2 + 40 3a 3 ) 8
+ ...
4480
(1 + a)7

(1) = 0
(0) = a

(19)

.
.
.

Also, for radiation we have:

Taking the differential transform of the dimensionless form

of the boundary conditions in Eq. (11), respectively, gives:

(2) =

1 N 2a2
N 2a5
N 2 a6
N 2 a7 2
(2N 2a5 + N 2a6 2
4
2
)
24 (1 + a)3
1+ a
1+ a
1+ a

(5) = 0

where:
N

(4) =

1 N 4a5
8 (1 + a )3

1 N 2a4
2 1+ a

1 N 2a2
N 2a5
N 2a6
N 2a7 2
( 2 N 2 a5 + N 2 a 6 2
) + ... = 1.
4
2
3
24 (1 + a)
1+ a
1+ a
1+ a

(23)

(5) = 0
(6) =

1 N 6 a 7 (3 + 2 2 a 2 )
80
(1 + a)5

(18)

(7) = 0
(8) =

1 N 8 a 9 (49 + 20 a 66 2 a 2 + 40 3a 3 )
4480
(1 + a)7

(9) = 0
.
.
.

The value of a can be obtained by solving these equations.

This value is too long to be shown in this paper, but two special cases used in the tables and figures of this paper are as
follows:
n = 2, N = 1, = 0.2
n =3, N =0.5, =0.2

a = 0.7253094408
a = 0.9203353836.

Finally, by substituting a into Eqs. (20) and (21), the temperature distribution can be obtained.

Also, for radiation in n = 3 , series terms can be presented

as below:

(2) =

(22)

1 N a
2 1+ a

5. Results and discussion

To show the validity of DTM, the results of the present
analysis for various values of n, N and , are tabulated

S. Sadri et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

1287

Table 2. Comparison of DTM and NS temperature distribution.

n = 2, N = 1, = 0.2

0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.65
0.7
0.75
0.8
0.85
0.9
0.95
1

DTM
0.725309441
0.725867578
0.727545008
0.730350842
0.734300427
0.739415613
0.745725115
0.753265020
0.762079423
0.772221239
0.783753211
0.796749146
0.811295443
0.827492968
0.845459366
0.865331918
0.887271098
0.911465017
0.938135038
0.967542918
1.000000000

0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.65
0.7
0.75
0.8
0.85
0.9
0.95
1

DTM
0.920335384
0.920524753
0.921093139
0.922041367
0.923370823
0.925083454
0.927181781
0.929668909
0.932548546
0.935825017
0.939503290
0.943589000
0.948088476
0.953008780
0.958357737
0.964143984
0.970377016
0.977067235
0.984226014
0.991865764
1.000000000

NS

Error

0.725309439
0.725867574
0.727545006
0.730350839
0.734300425
0.739415610
0.745725113
0.753265017
0.762079419
0.772221236
0.783753208
0.796749142
0.811295439
0.827492964
0.845459361
0.865331913
0.887271093
0.911465013
0.938135033
0.967542913
1.000000000

2.20E-09
3.35E-09
2.61E-09
2.34E-09
2.62E-09
2.71E-09
2.74E-09
2.95E-09
3.23E-09
3.42E-09
3.60E-09
3.93E-09
4.26E-09
4.42E-09
4.60E-09
4.94E-09
4.95E-09
4.47E-09
4.92E-09
5.07E-09
0.00E+00

(a)

n = 3, N = 0.5, = 0.2
NS

Error

0.920335427
0.920524735
0.921093163
0.922041408
0.923370857
0.925083489
0.927181818
0.929668942
0.932548576
0.935825046
0.939503312
0.943589018
0.948088493
0.953008789
0.958357738
0.964143987
0.970377015
0.977067217
0.984226038
0.991865870
1.000000000

4.29E-08
1.86E-08
2.41E-08
4.13E-08
3.42E-08
3.56E-08
3.71E-08
3.26E-08
2.98E-08
2.88E-08
2.14E-08
1.77E-08
1.69E-08
9.30E-09
9.33E-10
2.58E-09
1.17E-09
1.74E-08
2.30E-08
1.06E-07
0.00E+00

against the numerical values in Table 2. In a considerable

number of cases, a very interesting agreement between the
results is observed, which confirms the excellent validity of
the DTM. Then, in Figs. 2, the comparison between the solutions of DTM and numerical results (NS) are shown. During
the solution procedure, minimum errors are obtained in 34
iterations for n = 2, N = 1, = 0.2 and 8 iterations for
n = 3, N = 0.5, = 0.2 .
The effect of thermal conductivity parameter ( ) on temperature distributions for two different cases are shown in Fig.

(b)
Fig. 2. Comparison of the solutions via DTM and NS for temperature
distribution: (a) for n = 2, N = 1, = 0.2; (b) for n = 3, N = 0.5,
= 0.2.

3. In these two cases, figures depicted the change of dimensionless temperature with various values of thermal conductivity parameter ( ) when the fin parameter and exponent of
heat transfer coefficient (n) are constant ( n = 2, N = 1 and
n = 3, N = 0.5 ). These figures display that increasing the values of thermal conductivity parameter produces increases in
values of dimensionless temperature. Also, they show that, for
large values of thermal conductivity parameter, dimensionless
temperature approaches unity. Because, increasing leads
to increase in thermal conductivity, the fin can be considered
as lumped.
Effects of fin parameter ( N ) on dimensionless temperature
when thermal conductivity parameter ( ) and exponent of
heat transfer coefficient ( n ) are constant are shown in Fig. 4.
Results show that, dimensionless temperature decreased by
increasing in fin parameters due to higher convective heat
transfer to the surrounding fluid, and for the special case when

1288

S. Sadri et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

(a)

(b)

Fig. 3. Effect of on dimensionless temperature profiles: (a) for n = 2, N = 1; (b) for n = 3, N = 0.5.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 4. Effect of N on dimensionless temperature profiles for (a) for n = 2, = 0.2; (b) for n = 3, = 0.2.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 5. Efficiency distribution for (a) different values of when n = 2: (b) different values of n when = 0.2.

N = 0 , we have no temperature gradient.

Distributions of thermal efficiency for different values of

thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient's exponent

(n) are shown in Fig. 5. Results show that, increasing in thermal conductivity and the exponent of heat transfer coefficient
lead to increase in thermal efficiency. Fig. 5(a) show that

S. Sadri et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

hb
L
N
n

NS
P
Q
T
Ta
Tb
x

1289

ent fluid ( Wm 1 K 1 )
: Heat transfer coefficient at the fins bastemperature
( Wm 2 K 1 )
: Fins length ( m )
: Fins parameter
: Power of the thermal conductivity function
: Numerical Solution
: Fins perimeter ( m )
: Heat transfer rate ( W )
: Temperature ( K )
: Temperature of surface a( K )
: Temperature of surface b( K )
: Spatial coordinate ( m )

Greek symbols
Fig. 6. Temperature distribution for = 0.2, N = 0.5.

thermal efficiency increased by increasing the thermal conductivity parameters. It is found that, for radiation heat transfer (when n = 3), thermal efficiency reach to its maximum
values.
The effect of the exponent of heat transfer coefficient (n) on
dimensionless temperature is shown in Fig. 6. Results show
that, dimensionless temperature increased by increasing n.

6. Conclusions
In this study, the problem of straight fin with dependent
thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient is considered. Nonlinear heat transfer equation related to a considerable
fin is derived and dimensionalized. Using DTM, differential
equations are transformed to algebraic equations in the K domain and solved iteratively. Results of DTM are compared
with NS in some figures and tables. Good agreement between
DTM and NS is obtained. Finally, the effect of the structure
variable (fin parameter, N) and heat transfer parameters (exponent of heat transfer coefficient and thermal conductivity
parameter) on dimensionless temperature and thermal efficiency are shown by some figures. It has been shown that for
radiation heat transfer, thermal efficiency reaches its maximum value.

Nomenclature-----------------------------------------------------------------------Ac
: Cross-sectional area of the fin ( m 2 )
ADM : Adomian's decomposition method
b
: Fins length ( m )
DTM : Differential transformation method
h (T ) : Heat transfer coefficient ( Wm 2 K 1 )
HAM : Homotopy analysis method
HPM : Homotopy perturbation method
1
1
k (T ) : Thermal conductivity ( Wm K )
k ( ) : Dimensionless thermal conductivity
ka
: Thermal conductivity at the temperature of the ambi-

: Dimensionless parameter describing variation of

thermal conductivity
: Fin efficiency
: D imensionless distance
: Slope of the thermal conductivity function ( K 1 )
: Dimensionless temperature

References
[1] D. Q. Kern and A. D. Kraus, Extended surface heat transfer,
McGraw-Hill, NewYork (1972).
[2] A. D. Kraus, Sixty-five years of extended surface technology,
Appl. Mech. Rev., 41 (1986) 321-364.
[3] A. Aziz and S. M. Enamul Hug, Perturbation solution for
convecting fin with variable thermal conductivity, J. Heat
Transfer, 97 (1975) 300-301.
[4] A. Cihat, A decomposition method for fin efficiency of convective straight fins with temperature-dependent thermal
conductivity, Int Commun Heat Mass Trans, 32 (2005) 831841.
[5] A. Rajabi, Homotopy perturbation method for fin efficiency
of convective straight fins with temperature-dependent thermal conductivity, Physics Letters, 364 (2007) 33-37.
[6] G. Domairry and M. Fazeli, Homotopy analysis method to
determine the fin effciency of convective straight fins with
temperature-dependent thermal conductivity, J. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, 14
(2009) 489-499.
[7] K. Laor and H. Kalman, Performance and optimum dimensions of different cooling fins with a temperature-dependent
heat transfer coefficient, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 39
(1996) 1993-2003.
[8] D. Lesnic and P. J. Heggs, A decomposition method for
power-law fin-type problems, Int. Commun. Heat Mass
Transfer, 31 (2004) 673-682.
[9] I. N. Dulkin and G. I. Garasko, Analytical solutions of 1-D
heat conduction problem for a single fin with temperature
dependent heat transfer coefficient I. Closed-form inverse
solution, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 45 (2002) 1895-1903.

1290

S. Sadri et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 26 (4) (2012) 1283~1290

[10] I. N. Dulkin and G. I. Garasko, Analytical solutions of 1D heat conduction problem for a single fin with temperature
dependent heat transfer coefficientII. Recurrent direct solution, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 45 (2002) 1905-1914.
[11] S. Sohrabpour and A. Razani, Optimization of convective
fin with temperature dependent thermal parameters, The
Journal of Franklin Institute, 330 (1993) 37-49.
[12] F. Khani, M. A. Raji and H. H. Nejad, Analytical solutions
and efficiency of the nonlinear fin problem with temperature-dependent thermal conductivity and heat transfer coeffcient, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical
Simulation, 14 (2009) 3327-3338.
[13] S. Kim, J.-H. Moon and C.-H. Huang, An approximate
solution of the nonlinear fin problem with temperaturedependent thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient,
J Phys D: Appl Phys., 40 (2007) 4382-89.
[14] J. K. Zhou, Differential transformation method and its
application for electrical circuits, Huazhong University
Press, Wuhan, China (1986).
[15] Y. Keskin and G. Oturanc, Application of reduced differential transformation method for solving gas dynamic equation,
International Journal of Contemporary Mathematical Sciences, 22 (22) (2010) 1091-1096.
[16] C. K. Chen and S. P. Ju, Application of differential transformation to transient advectivedispersive transport equation, Appl. Math. Comput., 155 (2004) 25-38.
[17] C. K. Chen and S. S. Chen, Application of the differential

transformation method to a non-linear conservative system,

Appl. Math. Comput., 154 (2004) 431-441.
[18] A. A. Joneidi, D. D. Ganji and M. Babaelahi, Differential
transformation method to determine fin efficiency of convective straight fins with temperature dependent thermal
conductivity, Int Commun Heat Mass Trans., 36 (7) (2009)
757-762.
[19] M. M. Rashidi and E. Erfani, New analytical method for
solving Burgers and nonlinear heat transfer equations and
comparison with HAM, Computer Physics Communications,
180 (9) (2009) 1539-1544.
[20] I. H. Abdel-Halim Hassan, Application to differential transformation method for solving systems of differential equations, Appl. Math. Modeling, 32 (2008) 2552-2559.

Mohammad Reza Raveshi received his

B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical
Engineering from K.N. Toosi University
of Technology, Tehran, Iran. Mr. Raveshi is currently a research assistant at the
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at
K.N. Toosi University of Technology in
Tehran, Iran. His research interests include study of geothermal power plants, hyperbolic heat transfer, boiling heat transfer and heat transfer of nanofluids.