A polygonal element differential method for solving two-dimensional transient nonlinear heat conduction problems

A novel polygonal element differential method (PEDM) is presented for solving two-dimensional nonlinear transient heat conduction problems for the first time. New shape functions as well as their derivatives with respect to isoparametric coordinates are derived to treat the polygonal elements with an internal node. System equations of the PBEM are formulated in terms of the governing equation and heat flux equilibrium condition, in which, a finite difference scheme is executed for calculating the transient term. Then, the nonlinearity system equations are dealt with by the Newton iterative method. Finally, examples with different structural complexities are designed to examine the property of the proposed method. The results show that the PEDM can effectively solve general two-dimensional transient nonlinear heat conduction problems with excellent accuracy and efficiency.