Development of a User-Friendly Virtual Laboratory for Simulating Three-Dimensional Transient Heat Transfer in Regularly Shaped Solids

Abstract

In this project, Matlab® computational and visualization tools were used to develop user-friendly software, called 3D Transient Heat Flow. With this interactive software, the students can run a wide variety of the experiments with different materials, boundary conditions and geometry at transient conditions. It is interesting to note that running some of these experiments in traditional labs is impossible. The software presents experimental results in colored graphical diagrams as well as tables and charts, which can be compared easily with the results of previous experiments. In order to evaluate and validate the reliability of the software, a case study is considered, in which the results obtained using the software are compared with those obtained using computational fluid dynamics code, such as the Fluent® package.