Transient thermal conduction analysis of a rectangular plate with multiple insulated cracks by the alternating method

An efficient analytical alternating method is developed in this study to investigate the transient thermal conduction problem of a finite plate with multiple insulated cracks. Analytical solutions of rectangular plates subjected to a point temperature and a point temperature gradient on boundaries are derived to construct the full field solutions of rectangular plates under arbitrarily distributed thermal loadings by Gauss integration, By using these analytical fundamental solutions, the analytical alternating method is applied to obtain the full field temperature distribution of rectangular plate with multiple cracks. The temperature distribution of a finite plate with multiple insulated cracks in steady state are compared with the results obtained by other researches and excellent agreements are shown. The transient temperature distribution of a finite plate with multiple insulated cracks are obtained and discussed in derail. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.