Author(s)

Jianming Zhang, Xianghe Li & Yuan Li

Abstract

This paper presents a multi-domain boundary face method (MD-BFM) for solving steady-state heat conduction problems on large-scale engineering structures. In the BFM, both boundary integration and variable approximation are performed in the 2-D parametric space of the boundary surfaces of the body in question. The surface parameters are obtained through the boundary representation data structure (B-rep) implanted in all CAD packages. The geometric quantities in the boundary integrals of the BIE are computed directly in the parametric spaces of the surfaces to avoid geometric errors. On the other hand, a MDBFM is necessary for structures of complex shapes or constituted of different kinds of materials. In this work, the multi-domain BFM is developed and applied for heat conduction analysis of a real gravity dam. Numerical results have demonstrated that our method can achieve comparable accuracy than other methods (e.g. the FEM), but at much lower costs in terms of both computer resources and human labor. Keywords: boundary face method, steady state heat conduction, multi-domain problem, large scale problem.

Keywords

boundary face method, steady state heat conduction, multi-domain problem, large scale problem