Efficient Finite Element and Differential Quadrature Methods for Heat Distribution in One-Dimensional Insulated-Tip Rectangular Fin

There are many numerical solution techniques acquainted by the computational mechanics community including the finite element method (FEM) and differential quadrature method (DQM). Usually elements are sub-divided uniformly in FEM (conventional FEM, CFEM) to obtain temperature distribution behavior in a fin. In CFEM extra computational complexity is needed to obtain a better solution with required accuracy. In this paper, non-uniform sub-elements techniques are considered for the FEM (efficient FEM, EFEM) solution to reduce the computational complexity. Then EFEM is applied for the solution of the one-dimensional heat transfer problem in an insulated-tip thin rectangular fin. The results are compared with CFEM and efficient DQM (EDQM, with non-uniform mesh generation). It is observed that EFEM exhibits more accurate results compared to CFEM and EDQM. The proposed techniques are showing the potentiality of the heat transfer related problem.