Abstract
We consider a heat diffusion problem inside a composite medium. The contact resistance at the interface of constitutive materials allows for jumps of the temperature field. The transmission conditions need to be handled carefully and efficiently. The main concerns are accuracy and feasibility. Hybrid dual formulations are recommended here as the most popular mixed finite elements well adapted to account for the discontinuity of the temperature field. We therefore write the discretization of the heat problem by mixed finite elements and perform its numerical analysis. Of course, applying Lagrangian finite elements is possible in simple composite media but it turns out to be problematic for complex geometries. Nevertheless, we study the convergence of this finite element method to highlight some particularities related to the model under consideration and point out the effect of the contact resistance on the accuracy. Illustrative numerical experiments are finally provided to assess the theoretical findings.
Résumé
Nous considérons une équation qui modélise la diffusion de la température dans une mousse de graphite contenant des capsules de sel. Les conditions de transition de la température entre le graphite et le sel doivent être traitées correctement. Nous effectuons l’analyse de ce modèle et prouvons qu’il est bien posé. Puis nous en proposons une discrétisation par éléments finis et effectuons l’analyse a priori du problème discret. Quelques expériences numériques confirment l’intérêt de cette approche.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, R.A., Fournier, J.: Sobolev Spaces. Academic Press, London (2003)
Arnold, D.N., Brezzi, F., Cackburn, B., Marini, L.D.: Unified analysis of discontinuous Galerkin methods for elliptic problems. SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 39, 1749–1779 (2002)
Bernard, J.-M.: Density results in Sobolev spaces whose elements vanish on a part of the boundary. Chin. Ann. Math. Ser. B 32, 823–846 (2011)
Bernardi, C., Maday, Y., Patera, A.T.: A new nonconforming approach to domain decomposition: the mortar element method. In: Brezis, H., Lions, J.-L. (eds.) Collège de France Seminar. Pitman, London (1990)
Bernardi, C., Maday, Y., Rapetti, F.: Discrétisations variationnelles de problèmes aux limites elliptiques. Collection “Mathématiques et Applications” 45. Springer, Berlin (2004)
Brenner, S., Scott, L.R.: The Mathematical Theory of Finite Element Method, Texts in Applied Mathematics 15. Springer, Berlin (2008)
Brezzi, F., Fortin, M.: Mixed and Hybrid Finite Element Methods. Springer, Berlin (1991)
Ciarlet, P.G.: The Finite Element Method for Elliptic Problems. North Holland, Amsterdam (1978)
Fletcher, L.S.: Conduction in solids, imperfect metal-to-metal contacts: thermal contact resistance, Section 502.5, Heat Transfer and Fluid Mechanics Data Books, Genium Publishing Company, Schenectady, New York (1991)
Girault, V., Raviart, P.-A.: Finite Element Methods for Navier-Stokes Equations, Theory and Algorithms. Springer, Berlin (1986)
Grisvard, P.: Elliptic Problems in Nonsmooth Domains. Pitman, London (1985)
Hecht, F.: Freefem\(_{++}\). Third Edition, Version 3.30, http://www.freefem.org/ff++
Hecht, F.: New development in freefem++. J. Numer. Math. 20, 251–265 (2012)
Jelassi, F., Azaïez, M., Palomo Del Barrio, E.: A substructuring method for phase change modelling in hybrid media. Comput. Fluids 88, 81–92 (2013)
Jerison, D., Kenig, C.E.: The Neumann problem on Lipschitz domains. Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 4, 203–207 (1981)
Lions, J.-L., Magenes, E.: Problèmes aux limites non homogènes et applications, vol. I. Dunod, Paris (1968)
Raviart, P.-A., Thomas, J.-M.: A mixed finite element method for second order elliptic problems. In: Mathematical Aspects of Finite Element Methods, Lecture Notes in Math., Vol. 606. Springer, Berlin, pp. 292–315 (1977)
Roberts, J.E., Thomas, J.-M.: Mixed and Hybrid Methods, Handbook of Numerical Analysis. In: Ciarlet, P.G., Lions, J.-L. (eds.) Finite Element Methods (Part I), vol. II, pp. 523–639. Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam (1991)
Safa, Y.: Simulation numérique des phénomènes thermiques et magnétohydrodynamiques dans une cellule de Hall-Héroult. Ph. D, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lauzanne (2005)
Swartz, E.T., Pohl, R.O.: Thermal boundary resistance. Rev. Mod. Phys. 61, 605 (1989)
Acknowledgments
We are deeply grateful to Professor Vivette Girault for valuable discussion on the subject of the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ben Belgacem, F., Bernardi, C., Jelassi, F. et al. Finite Element Methods for the Temperature in Composite Media with Contact Resistance. J Sci Comput 63, 478–501 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10915-014-9907-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10915-014-9907-0