Heat Transfer Concepts

An interactive computer based learning tool for undergraduate students enrolled in Heat Transfer courses has been significantly expanded. A previous version of the program provided graphical depictions of two-dimensional steady state conduction solutions for cases where temperature boundary conditions were prescribed. The present research expands the features of the program to include prescribed heat flux boundary conditions as well as convective boundary conditions. Moreover, the expanded program also handles transient cases so that students can watch temperature changes in a material on a real-time basis. The addition of these boundary conditions also now allows one dimensional problems to be solved by specifying a zero heat flux condition on opposing sides of the body. The solutions for the original version of the program were generated using a code developed for Sandia National Laboratory which was DOS based. The revised program has replaced this computational kernel with a numerical solution which is programmed as part of the native Visual Basic code. This feature allows the program to run more seamlessly, without the need for a black DOS window to appear on the screen