Heat Transfer Scoping Calculations [Slides]
This set of slides summarizes calculations done to bound heat transfer from inner metallic shells of variable thicknesses, through an outer polymeric shell, and ultimately to the external world. Two initial conditions were studied. The first condition provides a constant thermal power (energy per unit time) to the first inner shell and calculates thermal equilibrium. The second condition establishes an initial temperature of 640 Celsius in the first inner shell, and then models the heat transfer as a function of time through the outer shell and then to the surroundings. Conservative assumptions about the conduction between shells and the natural convection or radiation to the surroundings were used to bound or to scope the range of solutions. This is an idealized, one dimensional, system of three materials and the bounding environment calculated as a two-dimensional axisymmetric problem in COMSOL to determine the feasibility of using such a model on more complex systems, in higher dimensions.