Numerical Investigation of Heat Conduction in 2 Dimensional slab

using Ansys Fluent 19.2

MANISH SINGH

M. Tech. Student (183606), Mechanical Engineering Department

National Institute of Technology, Warangal, India-506004.

Abstract: In nearly all the fields heat transfer is any how involved which can be denied by
anyone. So looking at the challenges of real life this is very vibrant field of research and
study. In this report the temperature distribution in 2-D plate is found out using ansys fluent
19.2. The results obtained, from ansys has been compared with the analytical and with other
numerical method of solving elliptic equation. Along with comparison grid independence is
also shown in fluent. Comparison of central point temperature of the surface with respect
analytical solution has been shown.

Keywords: 2-Dimensional heat conduction, Alternate Direction Implicit Scheme

Nomenclature:

T-Temperature

x- spatial x co-ordinate

y- spatial y-co-ordinate

𝜃- Non-dimensionlised temperature

Ki- Thermal Conductivity of the material in “i” direction.

𝜃 – Separation constant.

n- time step in finite difference formulation.

D- dimensional

𝜃- Ratio of step sizes in x and y direction in ADI method.

 1. Introduction

There are three modes of heat transfer conduction, convection and radiation in this universe.
Out of these, conduction and convection requires medium for heat transfer but radiation does
not require any medium for heat transfer. For conduction static medium is required where
heat is transferred in molecular vibration or due to flow of electrons. Conduction may take
place in solid, liquid and gas, depending on the conditions suits for conduction heat transfer.
There are several examples around where conduction heat transfer can be observed like fins,
plane wall, heat exchangers etc. But only knowing about the process is not going to help to
solve real issues. As an engineer, we need to design and develop new products for common
people or solving some problem associated with heat transfer. The major challenge in a heat
conduction analysis is to determine the temperature field in a medium resulting from
conditions imposed on its boundaries. That is, we wish to know the temperature distribution,
which represents how temperature varies with position in the medium. Once the temperature
distribution is known, the conduction heat flux at any point in the medium or on its surface
may be computed from Fourier’s law. Knowing about temperature distribution can help in
terms of finding out the thermal stress development inside the body if it is a solid body. In
fins also it is required to find out the temperature distribution so that it can be designed how
much length will work for particular purpose. Looking at all the applications of temperature
distribution, a governing equation is being developed in which one can find the temperature
distribution in all three dimensions. The governing equation is as follows-
6 6T
(𝜃 6T 6 (𝜃 6T 6 (𝜃 ) + 𝜃𝜃 = 𝜃𝜃𝜃 (1)
)+ )+ 6T

6s s 6s 6y y 6y 6z z 6z p 6t

Here in above equation (1) is general form in Cartesian coordinates, of the heat conduction
equation. This equation is often referred as to as the heat equation, provides the basic tool for
heat conduction analysis.
Form equation one according to the merit of the problem different equations can be derived
and solved for finding out the temperature distribution. The problem I have taken in that it is
required to find out the temperature distribution in two dimensional plate. For deriving the
equation for 2-D heat conduction plate certain assumptions are needed –
 Isotropic material, thermal conductivity is constant.
 No heat generation
 Steady state

So final equation –
62T 62T
+ =0 (2)
6s2 6y2

The equation (2) has been taken in x-y plane because the problem is also has been taken in x-
y plane. For solving the eq(2) three methods has been used analytical, numerical solution in
MATLAB and numerical solution in FLUENT.
 2. Methods of solution

The problem which has been taken is shown in below figure(1). Here in the problem a square
plate of very small thickness is being considered. All the four side of the plate are subjected
to uniform temperature. Top side is maintained at 373K and rest of the sides are maintained
at 303K. The side of the plate has been taken as 1m.

Fig-1
For solving the above problem mentioned in Fig-1, three methods are used as mentioned in
introduction are as follows-
2.1 Analytical

The method of separation of variables is used as analytical method for solving the
given problem. We are interested in the temperature distribution 𝜃(𝜃, 𝜃), but to simplify the
solution we introduce the transformation

Fig-2
 T–T1
𝜃= (3)
T2–T1

Substituting equation (3) in to equation(2), the transformed differential equation is then

628 628
+ =0 (4)
6s2 6y2

Since the equation is in second order in both 𝜃 and𝜃, two boundary conditions are needed for
each of the coordinates. They are-

𝜃(0, 𝜃) = 0 and 𝜃(0, 𝜃) = 0

𝜃(𝜃, 𝜃) = 0 and 𝜃(𝜃, 𝜃) = 1
Note that, through the transformation of equation (3), three of the four boundary conditions
are now homogeneous and the value 𝜃 is restricted to the range from 0 to 1. In this method,
solution is expressed in form of multiplication of two functions, one of which depends only
on 𝜃 while the other depends only on 𝜃. Now the solution is assumed as-
𝜃(𝜃, 𝜃) = 𝜃(𝜃) ∙ 𝜃(𝜃) (5)
Substituting it in to equation (4) and dividing by 𝜃 , obtained relation-
1 d2X 1 d 2F
− = (6)
X ds2 F dy2

It is evident that the differential equation is separable. But for doing so both left side and right
of the equation should be equal to a constant as 𝜃2, now the relations will be –
d2 X
+ 𝜃 2𝜃 = 0 (7)
ds2
d2 F
− 𝜃2 𝜃 = 0 (8)
dy2

Here from above equations (7) and (8) it can be seen that the partial differential equation
shown in equation (2) has been converted in to two ordinary differential equations. Now
equations (7) and (8) can be solved using only complementary part of the solution because
right side is zero. And finally solving both the differential equations and finding out the
constant values using the boundary conditions mentioned earlier analytical solution is as
follows-
2
𝜃(𝜃, 𝜃) = ∑œ (–1)n+1+1
𝜃𝜃𝜃
nns sinh (nny⁄L) (9)
n n=1 n L sinh (nnM⁄L)

Equation (9) is a convergent series, from which the value of 𝜃 may be computed for any 𝜃
and 𝜃. Here in this report for getting the results for the problem MATLAB coding is done and
solution is obtained which is shown in results section.
2.2 Alternate Direction Implicit(ADI) method
 In this method, finite differential formulation
is done using Taylor’s series and higher order terms are left as truncation error. So the
equation (2) in the finite differential form will be written as-
8(i+1,j) –28i,j +8i—1,j 8(i,j+1) –28i,j +8i,j—1
(∆s)2
+ (∆y)2
=0 10

Fig-3 (Grid points for five point formula)

In ADI method, an iteration cycle is considered complete once the resulting tridiagonal
system is solved foe all the rows and then followed by columns or vice versa. For ADI
method the equation (10) take the following forms-
1 1 1 1
k+ k+2
𝜃i–1,j 2 − 2(1 + 𝜃2 )𝜃i,j + 𝜃i+1,j k+2 = −𝜃 2 (𝜃i,j+1 k + 𝜃i,j–1 k+2 ) (11)
1
k+1 k+2
𝜃2 𝜃i,j–1 − 2(1 + 𝜃2 )𝜃i,j k+1 + 𝜃2 𝜃i,j+1 k = −𝜃i+1,j − 𝜃i–1,j k+1 (12)

In these equations,(11) is solved implicitly for the unknown in 𝜃 direction and (12) is solved
implicitly in 𝜃 direction. The equations, (11) and (12) are being solved in MATLAB using
tridiagonal solver and the results has been shown in result section.
2.3 Fluent

For solving the 2D, steady state heat conduction problem as mentioned in fig-
1,in ANSYS 19.2 student version fluent is being used. Design modular section first geometry
is made as shown in fig-1. The geometry is saved then move to the mesh section. In mesh
section first meshing is done but the mesh was not smooth so every edge is being separately
divided in equal number of divisions. After edge meshing face meshing is performed. Now
when meshing is done after updating, move to the setup section. In setup section several
things are done related to problem solving like, selecting material as solid, governing
equation as energy equation, defining boundary conditions. In solution sections number of
iterations are fixed and after initializing the solution finally calculations are done. Moving to
the result section contour plot is plotted for entire surface and in xy plot variation along a
centreline in the geometry is plotted. The same procedure is repeated for different sizes of
meshing performed on the geometry. The contour plots and plot of centre line temperature
has been mentioned in results section. For checking either solution is conversed or not grid
independence test is also done. For grid showing grid independence two different sizes has
been considered. The grid size has been shown in the below table-2.1
Name Nodes Number of elements Number of divisions
on edges
Grid size A 225 196 14
Grid size B 441 400 20

Plotting the results associated with two grid sizes, it is found that the solution is same. By
which it can be concluded that further no need to take more number of grids for getting more
precise solution. The plot related grid independence has been shown in the fig-4
380

370

360

350
Temperature (K)

340

330 Grid Size A

320 Grid Size B

310

300

290
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Length (m)

Fig-4 centre line temperature distribution for both grid size A and grid size B
3. Results and discussion

3.1 Temperature contour plots

Static temperature contours has been plotted with the help of

ansys fluent 19.2 and using MATLAB code. For MATALB coding ADI method is being used
which is already discussed. The contours have been shown in below figures (5) and (6).
 Fig-5 Contour plot of static temperature in Fluent

Fig-6 (Contour plot of static temperature for ADI in MATLAB)

3.2 Centre line temperature

Now centre line, from bottom to top surface at .5m in x

direction has been taken. The temperature distribution along that line has been found out
using above mentioned methods Analytical, ADI and Fluent. Temperature distribution has
been shown in the figure-7. In figure-7 it can be seen that all the three results is showing
same trend there is very less difference in the results from different methods.
 380
370
360
350
Temperature (K)

340
330
320
310
300
290
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Length (m)

ADI FLUENT ANALYTICAL

Fig-7, Temperature distribution along the centre line

Table 3.1 Comparison of the center point temperature of slab
Sr. No. Method Temperature (K) % error from analytical
solution

1 Numerical (Ansys Fluent 19.2) 320.496 .0178

2 Numerical (ADI Scheme) 320.499 .01687

3 Analytical solution 320.5531 -

4. Conclusions

Finally looking at all the results obtained from the three methods it can be easily concluded
that the solution obtained from the Ansys fluent is correct and also the solution is conversed.
From the table 3.1 it can be observed that with respect analytical solution the error in other
two methods is very less. So the methods, which have been discussed for solving this kind of
problem, are reliable.
5. References
1. F.P. Incropera, D.P. Dewitt, T.L.Bergman, A.S. Lavine, “Principles of HEAT AND
MASS TRANSFER”, John Wiley & sons publication, 7th edition, page no. 231.
2. Klaus A. Hoffmann, Steve T. Chiang, “Computational Fluid Dynamics”, vol.1, page
no. 165.