Variational Approach to the Thermal Explosion Model Analysis in a Solid

Abstract

A temperature state of the solid body may depend both on the conditions of heat exchange with external environment surrounding its surface and on the energy release within the body volume, caused, for example, by the processes in nuclear reactor elements or exothermic chemical reactions, absorption of penetrating radiation energy or transformation of a part of the electrical power into heat with flowing electric current (so-called Joule heat). If with growing temperature the intensity of bulk power density increases, a limited steady temperature state can emerge at which heat extracted to the body surface and released within its volume reaches maximum. Thus, small increments of temperature lead to an increase of heat release, which can not be extracted to the body surface by conduction without further temperature increase. As a result, the steady temperature distribution in the body becomes impossible that determines the state of the thermal explosion, so named due to the fact that in this case the appropriate mathematical model predicts an unlimited temperature increase. A lot of published papers and monographs concerning the study of the combustion and explosion processes in a stationary medium analyse the thermal explosion state. The most famous papers consider a mathematical model to describe a temperature distribution in the case when heat release is because of exothermic chemical reactions the rate of which increases with temperature growth. The dependence of the chemical reaction rate on temperature is usually described by the exponential Arrhenius law, which makes it necessary to consider an essentially nonlinear mathematical model containing differential equation, which includes the term, nonlinearly rising with increasing temperature. Even with simplifying assumptions, this model allows an exact closed form solution only in the case of one-dimensional temperature distributions in the two areas of the canonical form: in the plate, infinite in its plane, and in the circular cylinder unlimited in length. An approximate numerical solution of the differential equation that is included in a nonlinear mathematical model of the thermal explosion enables us to obtain quantitative estimates of combination of determining parameters at which the limit state occurs in areas of not only canonical form. A capability to study of the thermal explosion state can be extended in the context of development of mathematical modeling methods, including methods of model analysis to describe the thermal state of solids. To analyse a mathematical model of the thermal explosion in a homogeneous solid the paper uses a variational approach based on the dual variational formulation of the appropriate nonlinear stationary problem of heat conduction in such a body. This formulation contains two alternative functional reaching the matching values in their stationary points corresponding to the true temperature distribution. This functional feature allows you to not only get an approximate quantitative estimate of the combination of parameters that determine the thermal explosion state, but also to find the greatest possible error in such estimation.