Finite element analysis of triangular fins attached to a thick wall

Abstract

Heat conduction in an array of triangular fins with an attached wall is modeled using the finite element method. An adaptive mesh refinement technique is developed giving accuracy comparable to uniform mesh refinement and much increased computational efficiency. The effects of wall thickness and fin spacing are examined for various Biot numbers. It is shown that for low Biot numbers ( Bi < 0.1), the one-dimensional assumption is valid but for higher Biot numbers ( Bi ⪢ 0.1), two-dimensional heat conduction must be considered, temperature distributions at the fin root are always non-uniform and the fin is found not to be effective.