Solution of heat transfer problems on a digital computer

Abstract

This paper presents a nodal formulation of heat-transfer systems which can be applied to a large class of practical problems. The form of the resulting equations is either a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations or a system of nonlinear algebraic equations. Traditionally, the numerical solution of these two classes of heat-transfer problems have stressed methods that were originally developed for hand calculations. With the general availability of high-speed digital computers, more powerful numerical methods can be used. A solution technique which utilizes a digital computer is presented for both steady state and transient problems.