How Does Heat Transfer Into a Sphere Over Time?

[strokebow]

Hi,

I am looking to simulate a very - seemingly - simple case.
Any advice on a software package would be helpful - preferably gui which doesn't have a steep learning curve.

I want to model the heat flux into a sphere from the outside. The dimensions of the sphere are not important to me. I want to see how heat flow progresses into the sphere from the outside. For example, if the sphere was at temperature of 20 degs c. Then if the the outside temperature was 50 degs c, I would like to show how the heat transfers into the sphere over a given time period. Moreover, I would like to find out the point at which steady state is occurred.

I would then like to contrast that to the case of a cylinder (same radius as the sphere) but with a very short length. I.E. so that it approximates taking a slice through that sphere. I want to apply the same test to this circular slice, to show how the heat transfer takes a shorter time to reach steady state.

Any thoughts/suggestions are most welcome?

 

[Chestermiller]

Hi,

I am looking to simulate a very - seemingly - simple case.
Any advice on a software package would be helpful - preferably gui which doesn't have a steep learning curve.

I want to model the heat flux into a sphere from the outside. The dimensions of the sphere are not important to me. I want to see how heat flow progresses into the sphere from the outside. For example, if the sphere was at temperature of 20 degs c. Then if the the outside temperature was 50 degs c, I would like to show how the heat transfers into the sphere over a given time period. Moreover, I would like to find out the point at which steady state is occurred.

I would then like to contrast that to the case of a cylinder (same radius as the sphere) but with a very short length. I.E. so that it approximates taking a slice through that sphere. I want to apply the same test to this circular slice, to show how the heat transfer takes a shorter time to reach steady state.

Any thoughts/suggestions are most welcome?

Are you familiar with the transient heat conduction equation in spherical coordinates?