Integral solutions to transient nonlinear heat (mass) diffusion with a power-law diffusivity: a semi-infinite medium with fixed boundary conditions

Closed form approximate solutions to nonlinear heat (mass) diffusion equation with power-law nonlinearity of the thermal (mass) diffusivity have been developed by the integral-balance method avoiding the commonly used linearization by the Kirchhoff transformation. The main improvement of the solution is based on the double-integration technique and a new approach to the space derivative. Solutions to Dirichlet and Neumann boundary condition problems have been developed and benchmarked against exact numerical and approximate analytical solutions available in the literature.