Electrical Analogy of Heat Transfer

P M V Subbarao
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department
IIT Delhi

Simple ideas to Eliminate Discontinuities

in Solution Domain…
Discontinuous Conduction Medium
 Discontinuous Conduction Medium
• High strength metal structures
are required for tall buildings.
• The partition wall materials
should be light and insulating.
• This generates a composite wall
with sudden change in thermal
conductivity with heat flow
direction.
• Introduces a discontinuity in the
solution domain.
• Develop a simple method to
avoid singularities.
TInterior TExterior
 Electrical Circuit Theory of Heat Transfer
• DefineThermal Resistance
• A resistance can be defined as the ratio of a driving
potential to a corresponding transfer rate.
V
R
i
Analogy:
Electrical resistance is to conduction of electricity as thermal
resistance is to conduction of heat.
The analog of Q is current, and the analog of the
temperature difference, T1 - T2, is voltage difference.
From this perspective the slab is a pure resistance to heat
transfer and we can define
 T T
q  Rth 
Rth q

T Ts1  Ts 2 L m.K 1
Rth    m  K /W
qcond  Ts 2  Ts1  kA W m 2
 kA 
 L 

T Ts  T 1 m 2 .K 1
Rth     K /W
qconv hATs  T  hA W m 2
 T Ts  Tsurr 1 m 2 .K 1
Rth     K /W
qrad hr ATs  Tsurr  hr A W m 2
 The composite Wall
• The concept of a thermal
resistance circuit allows
ready analysis of problems
such as a composite slab
(composite planar heat
transfer surface).
• In the composite slab, the
heat flux is constant with x.
• The resistances are in series
and sum to Rth = Rth1 + Rth2.
• If TL is the temperature at the
left, and TR is the
temperature at the right, the
heat transfer rate is given by
T TL  TR
q 
Rth Rth1  Rth2
 Wall Surfaces with Convection

d 2T dT
A 2 0  C1  T  C1 x  C2
dx dx

Boundary conditions:

 h1 T (0)  T1 
dT
k
dx x 0
T1 T2

 h2 T ( L)  T 2 
dT
k Rconv,1 Rcond Rconv,2
dx xL
 Heat transfer for a wall with dissimilar
materials
Heat Transfer Circuit

• For this situation, the total heat flux Q is made up of the heat flux
in the two parallel paths:
• Q = Q1 + Q2
 with the total resistance given by:
 Composite Walls

• The overall thermal resistance is given by

 Desert Housing & Composite Walls

Rconv,room Rcond2 Rcond3 Rcond4 Rconv,amb

Rcond1
 One-dimensional Steady Conduction in Radial
Systems

 dT 
d kA 
 dr   0
dr
Homogeneous and constant property material
 dT 
d A
 dr   0
dr
 At any radial location the surface are for heat conduction
in a solid cylinder is:

Acylinder  2rl

At any radial location the surface are for heat conduction

in a solid sphere is:

Asphere  4r 2

The GDE for cylinder:

 dT 
d r
 dr   0
dr
The GDE for sphere:
 2 dT 
d r
 dr   0
dr

General Solution for Cylinder:

T r   C1 ln r   C2
 dT 
d r
 dr   0 
dr

General Solution for Sphere:

T r   C2 
C1
r
 Boundary Conditions

• No solution exists when r = 0.

• Totally solid cylinder or Sphere have no physical relevance!
• Inner wall at finite radius is essential for steady state conduction with
no heat generation.
• Dirichlet Boundary Conditions: The boundary conditions in any heat
transfer simulation are expressed in terms of the temperature at the
boundary.
• Neumann Boundary Conditions: The boundary conditions in any heat
transfer simulation are expressed in terms of the temperature gradient
at the boundary.
• Mixed Boundary Conditions: A mixed boundary condition gives
information about both the values of a temperature and the values of its
derivative on the boundary of the domain.
• Mixed boundary conditions are a combination of Dirichlet boundary
conditions and Neumann boundary conditions.
 Mean Critical Thickness of Insulation
Heat loss from a pipe surface:
h,T
q  hATs  T 
• If A, is increased, Q will increase.
• When insulation is added to a pipe, the outside
ri
surface area of the pipe will increase.
• This would indicate an increased rate of heat Ts
transfer ro
• The insulation material has a low thermal conductivity, it reduces the
conductive heat transfer lowers the temperature difference between the outer
surface temperature of the insulation and the surrounding bulk fluid
temperature.
• This contradiction indicates that there must be a critical thickness of
insulation.
• The thickness of insulation must be greater than the critical thickness, so
that the rate of heat loss is reduced as desired.
 T
Electrical analogy: Rate of heattransfer 
Rtotal
Ti  T
q
1  ro  1
ln   
2Lk  ri  2ro Lho

As the outside radius, ro, increases, then in the denominator, the first term
increases but the second term decreases.
Thus, there must be a critical radius, rc , that will allow maximum rate of
heat transfer, Q
The critical radius, rc, can be obtained by differentiating and setting the
resulting equation equal to zero.
 dq 2Lk Ti  T  1 k 
   2
0
dro   r  k 2  ro ho ro 
ln    
o

  ri  ho ro 

Only the term which can be made to zero is:

1 k k
 0  1 0
ro ho ro2 ho ro
The critical value of outer radius, ro = rc is

k
rc 
ho
Maximum Rate of Heat Transfer (Loss):

Ti  T
qmax 
1  rc  1
ln   
2Lk  ri  2rc Lho

Ti  T
qmax 
1  k  1
ln   
2Lk  ho ri  2kL

2Lk Ti  T 
qmax 
 k 
ln    1
 ho ri 
 Safety of Insulation
• Hot fluid carrying pipes that are readily accessible by workers are
subject to safety constraints.
• The recommended safe "touch" temperature range is from 54.4 0C to
65.5 0C.
• Insulation calculations should aim to keep the outside temperature of
the insulation around 60 0C.
• An additional tool employed to help meet this goal is aluminum
covering wrapped around the outside of the insulation.
• Aluminum's thermal conductivity of 209 W/m K does not offer much
resistance to heat transfer, but it does act as another resistance while
also holding the insulation in place.
• Typical thickness of aluminum used for this purpose ranges from 0.2
mm to 0.4 mm.
• The addition of aluminum adds another resistance term, when
calculating the total heat loss:
 Structure of Hot Fluid Piping

T1 T2

Rconv,1 Rpipe Rinsulation RAl Rconv,2

• However, when considering safety, engineers need a quick way to
calculate the surface temperature that will come into contact with the
workers.
• This can be done with equations or the use of charts.
• We start by looking at diagram:
At steady state, the heat transfer rate will be the same for each layer:

T1  T2 T2  T3 T3  T4
Q  
Rpipe Rinsulation RAl
Solving the three expressions for the temperature difference yields:

T1  T2 T2  T3 T3  T4 T1  T4
Q   
R pipe Rinsulation RAl Rtotal

Each term in the denominator of above Equation is referred to as the

“Thermal resistance" of each layer.
 Design Procedure
• Use the economic thickness of your insulation as a basis for your
calculation.
• After all, if the most affordable layer of insulation is safe, that's the one
you'd want to use.
• Since the heat loss is constant for each layer, calculate Q from the bare
pipe.
• Then solve T4 (surface temperature).
• If the economic thickness results in too high a surface temperature,
repeat the calculation by increasing the insulation thickness by 12 mm
each time until a safe touch temperature is reached.
• Using heat balance equations is certainly a valid means of estimating
surface temperatures, but it may not always be the fastest.
• Charts are available that utilize a characteristic called "equivalent
thickness" to simplify the heat balance equations.
• This correlation also uses the surface resistance of the outer covering
of the pipe.
Further Mathematical Analysis : Homogeneous ODE

 dT 
d A 
 dr  0
dr
• How to obtain a non-homogeneous ODE for one
dimensional Steady State Heat Conduction problems?
• Blending of Convection or radiation effects into
Conduction model.
• Generation of Thermal Energy in a solid body.
• GARDNER-MURRAY Ideas.
 Mathematical Ideas are More Natural
An optimum body size is essential for the
ability to regulate body temperature by
blood-borne heat exchange.
For animals in air, this optimum size is a
little over 5 kg.
For animals living in water, the optimum
size is much larger, on the order of 100 kg
or so.

This may explain why large

reptiles today are largely
aquatic and terrestrial
reptiles are smaller.
 Mathematical Ideas are More Natural
• Reptiles like high steady body temperatures just as
mammals and birds.
• They have sophisticated ways to manage flows of heat
between their bodies and the environment.
• One common way they do this is to use blood flow within
the body to facilitate heat uptake and retard heat loss.
• Blood flow is not effective as a medium of heat transfer
everywhere in the body.
• Body shape also enters into the equation.
• It also helps expalin the odd appendages like crests and
sails that decorated extinct reptiles like Stegosaurus or
mammal-like reptiles like Dimetrodon.
• Theoretical Biologists did Calculations to show these
structures could act as very effective heat exchange fins,
allowing animals with crests to heat their bodies up to high
temperatures much faster than animals without them.