Application of conformal mapping to the determination of unsteady temperature distribution in thermally orthotropic plates.

Abstract

Very few papers and reports are available on the solution of heat conduction problems in anisotropic solids. This situation is of particular interest in some nuclear engineering applications (for instance, fuel elements possess, in general, anisotropic characteristics). The present study deals with the solution of an unsteady heat conduction problem in domains of complicated boundary shape, considering a particular case of anisotropy: a thermally orthotropic material. It is shown that the conformal mapping technique coupled with the Ritz method leads to a unified solution of the title problem for an arbitrary orientation for the axes of orthotropy with respect to the directions of the sides of the plates.