Hybrid Finite Element Analysis of Heat Conduction in Orthotropic Media with Variable Thermal Conductivities

Abstract

A hybrid finite element method is proposed for the heat conduction analysis with variable thermal conductivities. A linear combination of fundamental solutions is employed to approximate the intra-element temperature field while standard one-dimensional shape functions are utilized to independently define the frame temperature field along the element boundary. The influence of variable thermal conductivities embeds in the intra-element temperature field via the fundamental solution. A hybrid variational functional, which involves integrals along the element boundary only, is developed to link the two assumed fields to produce the thermal stiffness equation. The advantage of the proposed method lies that the changes in the thermal conductivity are captured inside the element domain. Numerical examples demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method and also the insensitivity to mesh distortion.