2016 EP26004

LIU
Advanced Heat Transfer

ANALYSIS OF STEADY HEAT CONDUCTION USING THE FINITE ELEMENT

METHOD (FEM)

ABSTRACT
The approximate solution of the steady heat
conduction problem obtained by the finite element
method is presented in this work.

out =q x+dx , q y+dy , q z+dz

st = c p
INTRODUCTION
Several different approaches or techniques can be used
to solve heat conductions problems. The nite element
method is an approximate method of solution, which
has been developed during the last years due to the
introduction of fast and high-performance computers.
The advantages of the finite element method, as
compared to other numerical approaches, are
numerous. The method is adaptable to any geometry
and material properties. Complex bodies composed of
many different anisotropic materials are easily
represented. Temperature or heat flux boundary
conditions may be specified at any point within the
finite element system. Mathematically, any desired
degree of accuracy may be obtained in fact the method
converges to the exact solution as the number of
elements is increased. In addition, for the steady-state
condition the finite element approach generates heat
flow equilibrium equations which produce a
symmetric, positive-definite matrix which may be
placed in a band form and solved with a minimum of
computer storage and time. Taking advantage of the
special characteristics of the matrices we can also treat
the transient problem but we are not going to do that in
this repor.

=q x , q y , q z

Where:

g=dxdydz

T
dxdydz
t

q x +q y + q zq x+ dxq y +dy q z+ dz+ dxdydz = c p

Using

the

Taylor

series

expansion

T
dxdydz
t

q
q x+dx =q x + x dx and the Fouriers law (
x
T
q x =k
dydz along the x, y, z axis we
x

finally have the general form of heat diffusion

equation:

T
T
k
+
k
+
k
+ = c p
x x y y z z
t

( ) ( ) ( )

HEAT CONDUCTION PROBLEM (CARTESIAN

COORDINATE)
Consider a differential control volume dxdydz.
Making an energy balance we obtain:

out + g= st

2016 EP26004
LIU
At any point in the medium the net rate of energy
transfer by conduction into a unit volume (the heat
diffusion term) plus the volumetric rate of thermal
energy generation (the source term) must equal the
rate of changing of thermal energy stored within the
volume (the changes in the amount of the internal
thermal energy )
Now that we have derived the PDE of heat conduction
to solve the problem we need two boundary conditions
(B.C).
There are three different types of B.C :
Neumann
boundary
condition:

q w (x , t)=k

Dirichlet boundary condition: T(x,t) = Tw(x,t)

where Tw is a known function;
Cauchy
boundary
condition:

T T ( x ,t )
)
T
( x , t )=h
k
n
FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

T
(x ,t )
n

where q w is the given heat ux out of the

body;
Basic steps of the finite-element method (FEM):
1. Establish strong formulation
Partial differential equation
2. Establish weak formulation
Multiply with arbitrary field and integrate over
element
3. Discretize over space
Mesh generation
4. Select shape and weight functions
Galerkin method
5. Compute element stiffness matrix
Local and global system
6. Assemble global system stiffness matrix
7. Apply nodal boundary conditions
Temperature/flux/forces/forced displacements
8. Solve global system of equations
Solve for nodal values of the primary variables
(displacements/temperature)
9. Compute temperature/stresses/strains etc. within
the elements
Using nodal values and shape functions.
APPLICATION OF FEM
CONDUCTION PROBLEM

TO

HEAT

Let qi denote the heat flux vector, let T be the

temperature and let f be the heat supply per unit
volume. Assume the heat flux vector is defined in
terms of the temperature gradient by the generalized
Fourier law (in the case of the steady condition):
qi =k ij T ij ,
k ij =k ji
'
ij

where the conductivities, k s , are given functions

of x.
A formal statement of the strong form of the
boundary-value problem is as follows:

Given

R
f : R , g : g R , h: h R , find T :
q i=f
T =g g
such that:
q i n i=h h

The functions g and h are the prescribed boundary

temperature and heat flux.
The first equation inside the parenthesis is a
generalized Poisson equation, the second is a Dirichlet
boundary condition and the last one is a Neumann
boundary condition.
The weak formulation of the problem goes as follows:
Given

f : R , g : g R , h: h R , find T Z such that w W :

w, i q i d = wf d + wh d

Z denote the trial solution space and W the

variation space.
Let Z h and
approximations to
members of W h
h

W h be the finite dimensional

Z and W. We assume that all
admits the representation:

T =v + g
h
h
v W

h
g results in satisfaction
of the boundary condition T =g on g

Where

and

The Galerkin formulation is as follows.

Given

f , g , h find T h=v h + gh Z h such that wh W h

:
h

w , h a(w , g )
h
h
h
a ( w , v )= ( w , f ) +

The domain is now discretized into elements

domain e , as it shows in the following picture.

2016 EP26004

LIU
nel

F= F , F ={F P }
e

e=1

where

NA

K ePQ =
e

A typical member of
form:

is assumed to have the the

w h ( x ) = N a ( x ) c a
Where N a is the shape function associated with
node number A and c a is a constant.
Likewise :

v h ( x )= N a (x ) d a
Where d a is the unknown at node A ( in this case
the temperature).

gh ( x ) = N a g a g a=g(x )
h

g
g

has been defined to be the nodal interpolat of

by way of the shape functions, consequently it
will be just an approximations of g . Additional
sources of error are the use of the approximations
domain
f hhh placeof f h and
approximations in which element boundaries do not
exactly coincide with .
Substituting we finally obtain:

N a , h a (N a , N b) g b
a ( N a , N b ) d b =( N a , f ) +

To define the global stiffness matrix and force vector

we need to specify the global order of the equations.
For this purpose we introduce the destination array (ID
array) which assigns to node A the corresponding
global equation number.
The matrix equivalent of the previous equation is
given as follows:
Kd=F

K=[ K PQ ] , d={d Q } , F={ F p } ,1 P , Q neq

K PQ =a ( N A , N B ) , P=ID ( A ) ,Q=ID(B)
N A , h a(N A , N B ) g B
F P = ( N A , f )+
We can break up the global array in to the sums of
elements contributions:
nel

K= K , K =[ K PQ ]
e=1

N A , N B gB
a
e
F P= N A fd + N A h d
P= ID (A), Q= ID (B)
The elements stiffness k e and element force vector
f e may be deduced from these equations:

k e =[ k eab ] , f e = {f ea } ,1 a , b n en
N A T

N A , N B e =
k eab=a
nen

f a= N a fd + N a h d k ab gb
b=1

nen is the number of elements nodes and

g =g (x eb) if g is prescribed at node number b

Where
e
b

and equals to zero otherwise.

The global arrays K and F may be formed from the
element arrays k e f e . The element nodal data is
stored in the element nodes array (IEN) which relates
local node numbers to global nodes number. The
relationship between global node numbers and global
equation numbers as well as nodal boundary condition
information is stored in the ID array. In practice, the
IEN and ID arrays are set up from input data.
EXAMPLE OF MATLAB CODE
To solve a heat conduction problem on a rectangular
domain it can be used the matlab code we can find at
the end of this report.
NOMENCLATURE
= density;
c p = heat capacity;
h = convective heat transfer co,efficient
k= thermal conductivity;
K= global stiffness matrix;
F= force vector.

2016 EP26004

LIU

REFERENCE

Advanced Heat transfer slide, doctor Zhenyu

Liu ,Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Finite element solution of transient heat
conduction, Mile R. Vujic ic School of
Engineering, Materials Research Centre,
University of Swansea, Swansea.
Application of the finite element method to
heat conduction analysis, Edward L.

W.iLSON and Robert E. Nickell Department

of Civi~ Engineering, University of
California, Berkeley, California, USA.
Finite Element Methods and Their
Applications, Chen, Zhangxin, Springer;
2005 edition (July 26, 2005).
Finite Element Methods for Engineering
Sciences: Theoretical Approach and Problem
Solving Techniques, Joel Chaskalovic ,
Springer; 2009 edition (November 17, 2008)