| Abstract: | This study presents the finite element analysis for the transient heat transfer problems by introducing the Fourth-dimension concept. Time is treated as an additional dimension in the solution domain thereby Increasing the number of dimensions by one. For instance, a three-dimensional transient problem can be considered as a four-dimensional problem in the x, y, z, t domain and a two-dimensional transient problem can be considered as a three-dimensional steady-state problem in the x, y, t domain, respectively. The variational principle of the finite element method and the techniques existing for steady-state problems can be directly utilized. Numerical calculations were performed for heat conduction problems, laminar-turbulent convective heat transfer problems, and radiative heat transfer problems. |
