Introduction

Heat and Mass Transfer • Unsteady (Transient) implies variation with time or time
dependence.
• Many heat transfer systems encountered in practice are distinctly
unsteady (transient) and can’t be approximated by steady state
Chapter 4 •
assumption.
Unsteady or Transient, problems typically arise when the
boundary conditions of a system are changed.
• For example, if the surface temperature of a system is altered, the
temperature at each point in the system will also begin to change.
Unsteady (Transient) Conduction

By: Yacob Gebreyohannes

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Chapter Objectives Chapter Outline

The objectives of this chapter are:
• The Lumped Capacitance Method
To develop procedures for determining the time dependence of • Finite Difference Method
the temperature distribution within a solid during a transient
process, as well as for determining heat transfer between the solid
and its surroundings.

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 The Lumped Capacitance Method The Lumped Capacitance Method
• Interior temperature of some bodies remains essentially uniform at
• The essence of the lumped capacitance method is the assumption
all times during a heat transfer process.
that the temperature of the solid is spatially uniform at any instant
• The temperature of such bodies can be taken to be a function of during the transient process. This implies that temperature gradient
time only, T(t). is zero.
• Heat transfer analysis that utilizes this idealization is known as • From Fourier’s law heat conduction in the absence of temperature
lumped system analysis. gradient implies the existence of infinite thermal conductivity.
• Even the assumption of the lumped capacitance is impossible it is
closely approximated if the resistance to conduction with in the
A small copper ball solid is small compared with the resistance to heat transfer
can be modeled as a between the solid and its surroundings.
lumped system, but
a roast beef cannot. Consider a quenching
(cooling of a hot metal)
process
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The Lumped Capacitance Method The Lumped Capacitance Method

• Applying the general energy balance to a control volume • This equation enables us to
determine the temperature T(t) of
a body at time t, or alternatively, the
time t required for the temperature
• Introducing the temperature difference and
to reach a specified value T(t).
• The temperature of a body Ti
• Integrating this equation from the initial conditions t=0, T(0)=Ti approaches the ambient
temperature T∞ exponentially.
• The temperature of the body
• From the above equation the quantity may be interpreted as changes rapidly at the beginning,
a thermal time constant. This may be expressed as: but rather slowly later on.
Where • A small value of τt indicates that
• Rt is the resistance to convection the body approaches the
• Ct is the lumped thermal capacitance environment temperature in a short
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time.
 The Lumped Capacitance Method Validity of Lumped Capacitance Method
• To determine the total energy transfer Q occurring up to some time t • To develop a suitable criterion, consider steady-state conduction
through the plane wall of area A shown below

• Substituting for θ from equation above and integrating • For the plane wall Ts1>T∞, then
Ts1>Ts2>T∞, Hence under steady-
state heat conduction the surface
energy balance becomes:
Qcond = Qconv
Heat transfer to or from a body
reaches its maximum value
when the body reaches the • Rearranging
environment temperature.
• The quantity is a dimensionless number termed as the Biot
number
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Validity of Lumped Capacitance Method Validity of Lumped Capacitance Method

• This number provides a measure of the temperature drop in the
solid relative to the temperature difference between the surface and Small bodies with high thermal
the fluid. conductivities and low
Note: convection coefficients are most
• The condition corresponding to Bi<1 suggest that, for these likely to satisfy the criterion for
conditions, from the previous equation, the resistance to conduction lumped system analysis.
with in the solid is much less than the resistance to convection.
• Hence, the first thing that one should do is calculate the Biot number • With , the exponent of the previous equation for a plane
if the following condition is satisfied wall becomes:
Where Lc is the characteristic length

• For a plane wall Lc reduces to half the thickness of the wall. For a is termed as the Fourier’s number and is a
cylinder of radius ro and a sphere of radius ro the characteristic dimensionless time
length reduces to ro/2 and ro/3 respectively. Substituting
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 Example Finite Difference Method
• Determine the time t required for a 1.2 cm radius mild steel sphere to 1. Discretization of the heat equation: The explicit Method
cool from 4000C to 600C if exposed to cooling air at 250C. Assume • For transient heat conduction, with no heat generation and
h=120 w/m2K. ρ=7.8*103 kg/m3, k=45 w/mk and C=0.45 constant thermal conductivity, the appropriate form of the heat
kJ/kgK. equation is:
• Determine the total energy transfer Q occurring up to the time t
• Determine the maximum energy transfer Qmax • To obtain the finite difference form of this equation we may use
the central difference approximation to the spatial derivative.
Lc=ro/3
However, in addition to the being descretized in space the problem
must be descretized in time.
• Assume t = P∆t, where P represents the number of time intervals,
and the finite difference approximation to the time derivative in
previous equation is:
τt =ρLc C/h
Qmax=ρVC (Ti-T∞)

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Finite Difference Method Finite Difference Method

• In explicit method of solution, the temperature of each node are
evaluated at the previous (P) time hence the above equation is
considered to be a forward difference approximation.
• Substituting the two equations and recalling that the descretization of
the spatial derivatives, the finite difference equation for an interior
node m,n is:
Solving for the nodal temperature at the new (P+1) time and assuming
∆x = ∆y (square mesh):
Where Fo is the Fourier’s number given by:
• For one-dimensional (x-direction only) the explicit form of the
finite difference equations is:
• The previous equations are explicit because unknown nodal
temperatures for the new time are determined exclusively by known
temperature at the previous time.
• An undesirable feature of the explicit method is that it is not
unconditionally stable, and it is characterized by numerically induced
oscillations which may cause the solution to diverge from the actual
steady state condition.
• Hence, to provide this the prescribed ∆t must be maintained below a
certain limit which depends on ∆x. This dependence is known as the
stability criterion.

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 Finite Difference Method Finite Difference Method
• This criterion is determined by requiring that the coefficient of 2. Discretization of the heat equation: The implicit Method
node of interest at the previous time is greater than or equal to • Even if the explicit method offers computational convenience, it
zero. suffers from limitations on the selection of ∆t which lead to
• Hence from previous equations increase in computational time.
• For two-dimensional • A reduction in computational time may be realized by employing an
implicit finite difference scheme.
• The implicit equations may derived to approximate the time
• For one-dimensional derivatives, while evaluating all other temperatures at the new (P+t)
time instead of the previous time (P) time. The previous equation is
• For prescribed values of ∆x and α, these criteria may be used to then considered to provide a backward difference approximation to
determine upper limits to the value of ∆t. the time derivative. Hence, for an interior node the implicit form of
the finite difference equation is:

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Finite Difference Method Example

• Rearranging and assuming that ∆x = ∆y
• For one-dimensional (x-direction only) the implicit form of the
finite difference equations is:
• Here, the new temperature of the node is dependent on the new
temperature of other nodes, hence, to determine the unknown
nodal temperature at t+∆t the corresponding nodal equations must
be solved simultaneously.
• Such a solution may be affected by using matrix inversion or
Gauss-seidal iteration.
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A thick slab of copper initially at a uniform temperature of 200C is
suddenly exposed to radiation at one surface such that the net heat flux
is maintained at a constant value of 3*105 W/m2. Using the explicit and
implicit finite-difference techniques with a space increment of ∆x =75
mm, determine the temperature at the irradiated surface and at an
interior point that is 150 mm from the surface after 2 min have elapsed.
Copper: k=401 w/mk, α = 117*10-6m2/s
Surface node Interior node
Explicit
Implicit
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 Thank you

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