Middle East Technical University

Department of Mechanical Engineering

ME 311 – Heat Transfer – 2020-2021 Fall Semester

HOMEWORK 4

Assigned: 10.12.2020 Due: 17.12.2020 (until 17:00 to ODTUClass)

SOLUTION

a) Writing the energy balance for the interior nodes 6 and 7 gives (or using Eq. 4.29):

3T6 – T5 – T2 – T7 = 0
3T7 – T6 – T3 – T8 = 0

Note that there is no heat transfer at the lower surfaces of unit cells enclosing the nodes 6 and 7.
Inserting known values and solving for unknowns give:

T6 = 231.25°C
T7 = 243.75°C

b) The unit cells are shown as below:

qout,2 qout,3

qout,1 qout,4

qout,8
qout,5

For the net heat transfer from the bar to be zero, the total heat transfer at the boundries must sum up
to zero. Note that Δx=Δy. Assume the unit thickness as 1.

qout,1 + qout,2 + qout,3 + qout,4 + qout,5 + qout,8 = 0

𝛥𝑥 ⁄2 𝛥𝑥 ⁄2
𝑞𝑜𝑢𝑡,1 = 𝑘(𝑇2 − 𝑇1 ) + 𝑘(𝑇5 − 𝑇1 )
𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥
 𝛥𝑥 ⁄2 𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥 ⁄2
𝑞𝑜𝑢𝑡,2 = 𝑘(𝑇1 − 𝑇2 ) + 𝑘(𝑇6 − 𝑇2 ) + 𝑘(𝑇3 − 𝑇2 )
𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥
𝛥𝑥 ⁄2 𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥 ⁄2
𝑞𝑜𝑢𝑡,3 = 𝑘(𝑇2 − 𝑇3 ) + 𝑘 (𝑇7 − 𝑇3 ) + 𝑘(𝑇4 − 𝑇3 )
𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥
𝛥𝑥 ⁄2 𝛥𝑥 ⁄2
𝑞𝑜𝑢𝑡,4 = 𝑘(𝑇3 − 𝑇4 ) + 𝑘(𝑇8 − 𝑇4 )
𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥
𝛥𝑥 ⁄2 𝛥𝑥
𝑞𝑜𝑢𝑡,5 = 𝑘(𝑇1 − 𝑇5 ) + 𝑘(𝑇6 − 𝑇5 )
𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥
𝛥𝑥 ⁄2 𝛥𝑥
𝑞𝑜𝑢𝑡,8 = 𝑘(𝑇4 − 𝑇8 ) + 𝑘(𝑇7 − 𝑇8 )
𝛥𝑥 𝛥𝑥

Solving the above equations result with T4=T4, hence, infinitely many solutions are possible.