Mixed collocation-finite difference method for 3D microscopic heat transport problems

Three-dimensional time-dependent initial-boundary value problems of a novel microscopic heat equation are solved by the mixed collocation-finite difference method in and on the boundaries of a particle when the thickness is much smaller than both the length and width. The collocation method on fixed grid size is used to approximate the space operator, whereas the finite difference scheme is used for time discretization. This new mixed method is applied to a novel heat problem in a particle, in order to compute the temperature distribution in and on the particle's surface. The second derivatives of the basis functions for the spectral approximation are derived. Direct substitution of derivatives in the model transforms the differential equation into a linear system of equations that is solved by the specific preconditioned conjugate gradient method. The high-order accuracy and resolution achieved by the proposed method allows one to obtain engineering-accuracy solution on coarse meshes. The consistency, stability and convergence analysis are provided and numerical results are presented. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.