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Heat conduction in a random medium

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Abstract

The method of time-ordered cumulants is used to investigate the behavior of heat pulses in a one-dimensional medium in which the thermal conductivity is random. A partial differential equation is obtained for the average temperature profile; it is the heat equation modified by the addition of a fourth-order spatial derivative. A solution is obtained by asymptotic series. The first two spatial moments of the average temperature profile are evaluated and are shown to tend to those of a Gaussian whent is large. Finally, an equation is obtained for the covariance function.

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References

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Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.

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Fox, R.F., Barakat, R. Heat conduction in a random medium. J Stat Phys 18, 171–178 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01014308

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01014308

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