A Revolution in Heat Conduction Software

"In many applications of current and near-future interest, significant departures from Fourier's law are observed in the thermal conduction processes of engineering materials important to Army applications. Such discrepancies may result in inadequateprotection, excessive weight or premature hardware failure. To correct this, non-Fourier conduction modeling can be exploited to optimize current design tools. In particular, the dual phase lag (DPL) thermal model can be used to provide a very generaldescription for the thermal response of many materials both at the microscale and macroscale. In Phase I, we successfully developed a 1D DPL model and demonstrated potential thermal lag problems with a rocket nozzle design. In Phase II, we propose to:(i) develop a 3D finite element model of the DPL equation; (ii) construct an easy-to-use graphical interface to simplify problem set up; (iii) interface the DPL model with the ABAQUS finite element software; and (iv) conduct experiments to determine thephase lags for selected materials used by the Army. Successful completion of this effort will provide the Army with the software and material data necessary to analyze rapid thermal transients in rocket nozzles, and heat transfer in various applicationssuch as nanotechnology, laser technology, and MEMS."