COMPARISON OF NINE THREE-DIMENSIONAL NUMERICAL METHODS FOR THE SOLUTION OF THE HEAT DIFFUSION EQUATION

Abstract

The literature contains a large number of three-dimensional numerical methods that can be used to solve the heat diffusion equation. Users of numerical methods are often at a loss when faced with the selection of one method for their particular problem. To facilitate this task, a practical comparison of the nine more common three-dimensional methods is presented. Each numerical method is used to obtain the temperature distribution within a parallelepiped exposed to three very important boundary conditions: constant surface heat flux density, a sudden cooling of the wall temperature, and a sudden immersion in a fluid of constant heat transfer coefficient. A general discussion of each numerical method is given.