Heat Transfer

Transient Heat Conduction

Dr Abdul HaiAlami
 Main points
• Lumped system analysis
• Transient Heat Conduction in Large Plane Walls, Long
Cylinders, and Spheres with Spatial Effects
• Transient Heat Conduction in Semi-Infinite Solids
• Transient Heat Conduction in Multidimensional Systems
• Solving mystery of the Hulk (and his friend)

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 Introduction
• Temperature of body varies with time as well as position.
• Rectangular coordinates: variation expressed as T(x, y, z, t),
where (x, y, z) indicates variation in x, y, and z directions,
respectively, and t indicates variation with time
• Using the transient temperature charts along with analytical
solutions to solve HT ODEs

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 Lumped system analysis
• Lump in HT: body whose interior temperature remains
essentially uniform at all times during a heat transfer process
[temperature of such bodies can be taken to be a function of
time only, T(t)]
• lumped system analysis provides great simplification in
certain classes of HT problems without much sacrifice of
accuracy.

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 Lumped system definition
• For hot copper (good conductor) ball: temperature
changes with time, but does not change much with
position at any given time
• Uniform temperature describe independent of
position

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 Extreme case
• Lumped system analysis cannot be applied if
temperature varies within the volume
• Will develop formulation of lumped system then
define applicability criterion!

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 Lumped system formulation
• Body of arbitrary shape of mass m,
volume V, surface area As, density ρ, and
specific heat Cp initially at a uniform
temperature Ti.
• At time t= 0, the body is placed into a
medium at temperature T∞, and heat
transfer takes place between the body
and its environment, with a heat transfer
coefficient h. Assume that T∞ > Ti.
• Assume lumped system analysis applies:
• Temperature remains uniform within
body at all times and changes with time
only, T= T(t)
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 Formulation
• During a differential time interval dt, temperature of body
rises by differential amount dT.
• Energy balance of solid for time interval dt expressed as:

• This translates into:

• Noting that m= ρV and dT = d(T - T∞) and T∞= constant:

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 Formulation and integration

• Integrating from t= 0 where T= Ti to time t where T=T(t):

• Taking exponential of both side:

• The reciprocal of b (1/b) is called the time constant.

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 Solution plots
• For different values of b:
• From equation, determine temperature
T(t) of body at time t, or time t required
for temperature to reach a specified
value T(t)

• Temperature of body approaches

ambient temperature T∞ exponentially.

• Temperature of body changes rapidly at

beginning, but rather slowly later on.

• Large value of b indicates body will

approach environment temperature in a
short time
• Larger b, higher rate of decay in T

• b is proportional to A, 1/Cp, 1/m

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 Solving for convection
• Once temperature T(t) at time t is available from, rate of
convection heat transfer between body and environment at
that time is determined from Newton’s law of cooling:

• Total amount of heat transfer between body and

surroundings over time interval t= 0 to t is simply the
change in energy content of body:

• Maximum amount of HT when body reaches surroundings

temperature:

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 Criteria for Lumped System Analysis
• Now we know HOW. What about WHEN to use LSA?
• First step: define characteristic length, Lc as:
• Define relation between convection and conduction in
body as Biot Number:

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 Biot Number
• Solid body heated by hotter fluid
surrounding it: heat is first
convected to body and subsequently
conducted within body.
• Biot number is ratio of internal
resistance of a body to heat
conduction to its external resistance
to heat convection (small Biot
number represents small resistance
to heat conduction, and thus small
temperature gradients within body)

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 Bi and LSA
• Lumped system analysis assumes uniform temperature
distribution throughout body: only when thermal resistance of
body to heat conduction (the conduction resistance) is zero.
• Thus, lumped system analysis is exact when Bi= 0 and
approximate when Bi> 0
• The smaller Bi number: more accurate lumped system
analysis. But how “big” is acceptable?
• Generally accepted that LSA is applicable if Bi≤ 0.1
• (since other sources of uncertainty, e.g. in calculating h
contributes to larger “acceptable” errors, and temperature
difference (T-T∞) is less than 5%)

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 Suggested procedure for LSA
• Calculate Bi, assess applicability of LSA. (can still use LSA
even when criterion Bi ≤ 0.1 is not satisfied, if high accuracy
is not a major concern.
• Small bodies with high thermal conductivity are good
candidates for lumped system analysis, especially when they
are in a medium that is a poor conductor of heat (such as air or
another gas) and motionless.
• The hot small copper ball placed in quiescent air, discussed earlier, is
most likely to satisfy criterion for LSA

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 Remarks on HT in lumped systems
• Analogy: People from mainland are to go by boat to an
island whose entire shore is a harbor, and from harbor to
their destinations on island by bus

• If opposite is true: huge overcrowding at harbor, creating a

large difference between populations at the harbor and
inland. Chance of overcrowding is much lower in a small
island with plenty of fast buses
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 HT from hot body to cooler surroundings
• Heat will be transferred from body to surrounding fluid
as a result of a temperature difference.
• Energy will come from region near surface, and thus
temperature of body near surface will drop, creating
temperature gradient between inner and outer regions of
body and initiates heat flow by conduction from interior
of body toward outer surface
• If h is high, temperature of body near the surface will
drop quickly
• Bi is a measure of these competing effects
• Will always have T gradient within any body

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 Example: thermocouple
• The temperature of a gas stream is to be measured by a
thermocouple whose junction can be approximated as a 1-mm-
diameter sphere. The properties of the junction are k= 35 W/m·°C,
ρ = 8500 kg/m3, and Cp= 320 J/kg·°C, and convection heat
transfer coefficient between the junction and the gas is h= 210 W/
m2·°C. Determine how long it will take for thermocouple to read
99 percent of initial temperature difference.

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 Solution

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 Example: predicting time of death
• A person is found dead at 5 PM in a room whose
temperature is 20°C. The temperature of the body is
measured to be 25°C when found, and the heat transfer
coefficient is estimated to be h= 8 W/m2·°C. Modeling the
body as a 30-cm-diameter, 1.70-m-long cylinder, estimate
the time of death of that person

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 Solution

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 Transient Heat Conduction in
large plane walls, long
cylinders and spheres with
special effects

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 Current analysis
• Relatively small bodies of highly conductive materials
approximate isothermal behavior.
• In general, however, temperature within a body will change
from point to point as well as with time.
• Consider variation of temperature with time and position in
1D problems such as those associated with a large plane
wall, a long cylinder, and a sphere

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 Formulation
• Consider a plane wall of thickness 2L, a long cylinder of radius ro, and
a sphere of radius ro initially at a uniform temperature Ti
At time t= 0, each geometry placed in large medium at constant
• temperature T∞ and kept in for t > 0
Heat transfer takes place between these bodies and their environments by
• convection with uniform and constant heat transfer coefficient h
Three cases possess geometric and thermal symmetry:

•
• Plane wall is symmetric about its center plane (x = 0),

• Cylinder is symmetric about its centerline (r = 0), and

• Sphere is symmetric about its center point (r = 0)

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 Transient temperature profile
for wall

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 Temperature profile for wall
• When wall is first exposed to the surrounding medium at
T∞ < Ti @ t= 0: entire wall is at its initial temperature Ti.
• Wall temperature at and near surfaces starts to drop as a
result of heat transfer from wall to surrounding medium
creating a temperature gradient
• Temperature @ center of wall remains at Ti until t= t2, and
temperature profile within wall remains symmetric at all
times about the center plane.
• Temperature profile gets flatter and flatter as time passes
as a result of heat transfer, and eventually becomes
uniform at T = T∞ (thermal equilibrium, no HT)

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 Derivation of solution
• Formulation of problems for determination of 1D
transient temperature distribution T(x, t) in a wall results
in a partial differential equation, which can be solved
using advanced mathematical techniques.
• Solution normally involves infinite series: (inconvenient
and time-consuming to evaluate)
• Present solution in tabular or graphical form, and lump
variables together in dimensionless numbers (since so
many variables involved: x, L, t, k, α, h, Ti, and T∞)

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 Dimensionless numbers

• Nondimensionalization enables presenting temperature in

terms of three parameters only: [X, Bi, and τ] making it
practical to present solution in graphical form.
• The dimensionless quantities defined above for a plane wall
can be used for cylinder or sphere by replacing space variable
x by r and the half-thickness L (not Lc) by outer radius ro

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 Solution
• 1D transient conduction problem just solved exactly for any of
the three geometries, but solution involves infinite series
(difficult to deal with)
• But terms in solutions converge rapidly with increasing time,
and for τ > 0.2, keeping the first term and neglecting all
remaining terms in series results in an error under 2%
• Use one- term approximation

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 One term approximation

• A1 and λ1 are functions of Bi only (values listed in table)

• The function J0 is the zeroth-order Bessel function of the first
kind, whose value can be determined from table in next slide

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 One term approximation

• But not that cos(0)= J0(0)= 1 and limit of (sin x)/x is also 1:

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 Solution procedure
• Once Bi number is known, use relations to determine
temperatures anywhere in medium.
• Determination of constants A1 and λ1 requires interpolation
• Relations above plotted and the one-term approximation
solutions presented in graphical form (Transient Temperature
Charts or Heisler Charts) and are valid for τ > 0.2
• Charts are difficult to read, and are subject to reading errors.
Thus, relations before should be preferred to charts

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 Transient Temperature Charts/Heisler Charts
• There are three charts associated with each
geometry:
• The first chart is to determine the temperature To at the center of the
geometry at a given time t.

• The second chart is to determine the temperature at other locations at the

same time in terms of To.

• The third chart is to determine the total amount of heat transfer up to the
time t. These plots are valid for τ > 0.2

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 Plane wall of thickness 2L

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 Plane wall of thickness 2L

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 long cylinder of radius r o

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 long cylinder of radius r o

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 Sphere of radius r o

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 Sphere of radius r o

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 Notes
• the case 1/Bi = k/hL = 0 corresponds to h → ∞: case of
specified surface temperature T∞ (surfaces of body are
suddenly brought to the temperature T∞ @ t= 0 and kept at T∞
at all times can be handled by setting h to infinity
• Maximum amount of heat a body can gain (or lose if Ti > T∞)
is change in energy content of body:

• Once fraction of heat transfer Q/Qmax has been determined

from these charts for the given t, actual amount of heat
transfer by that time can be evaluated by multiplying this
fraction by Qmax

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 Heat fraction using one-term approximations

• Fraction of HT also be determined from these relations,

which are based on the one-term approximations already
discussed:

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 Physical significance of
Fourier number, τ
• Recall:

• Fourier number: measure of heat conducted through a body

relative to heat stored.
• Thus, a large value of Fourier number indicates faster
propagation of heat through a body

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 Example: Heating of Large Brass Plates in
an Oven
• In a production facility, large brass plates of 4 cm thickness
that are initially at a uniform temperature of 20°C are heated
by passing them through an oven that is maintained at
500°C. The plates remain in the oven for a period of 7 min.
Taking the combined convection and radiation heat transfer
coefficient to be h = 120 W/m2·°C, determine the surface
temperature of the plates when they come out of the oven

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 Solution

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 Example
Given a sphere with k = 0.45 W/m.C , α = 1.3 x 107 , diameter equal 6
cm. It is initially at 26 C and water with temperature -4 C and h = 26
W/m2.C . Find the time until the temperature of the center of the body
reaches 4 C.
 Transient Heat Conduction in
Semi-Infinite Solids
• Semi-infinite solid: idealized body that has a single plane
surface and extends to infinity in all directions
• Used to indicate that temperature change in part of body in
which we are interested (the region close to the surface) is
due to thermal conditions on a single surface

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 Formulation
• Consider semi-infinite solid at uniform temperature Ti. At
time t= 0, surface of solid at x= 0 is exposed to convection
by a fluid at a constant temperature T∞, and heat transfer
coefficient h.
• Solution is partial differential equation, which can be solved
analytically for transient temperature distribution T(x, t).
• The solution obtained is presented in following figures
graphically for nondimensionalized temperature defined as:

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 Variation of temperature with position
and time in a semi-infinite solid

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 Exact solution
• Use:

• Define complementary error function:

• Cannot be solved analytically and solved numerically and

tabulated in next table
• For special case of h → ∞, surface temperature Ts becomes
equal to the fluid temperature T∞:

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 Error function table

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 Example: Minimum Burial Depth of
Water Pipes to Avoid Freezing
In areas where the air temperature remains below 0°C for
prolonged periods of time, the freezing of water in underground
pipes is a major concern. The soil effectively serves as an
insulation to protect the water from subfreezing temperatures in
winter. The ground at a particular location is covered with snow
pack at -10°C for a continuous period of three months, and the
average soil properties at that location are k= 0.4 W/m·°C and α =
0.15 x 10-6 m2/s. Assuming an initial uniform temperature of 15°C
for the ground, determine the minimum burial depth to prevent
the water pipes from freezing.

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 Solution

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 Alternate solution

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