Recent Study on Heat Transfer Analysis for a Sphere of Combustible Material of Variable Thermal Conductivity

Abstract

This article considers an exothermic chemical reaction taking place in a stockpile of reactive material with thermal conductivity that is temperature dependent. The study is modeled in a spherical domain whose carbon containing material reacts spontaneously with the oxygen trapped within the system. The combustion process results with complicated process that is nonlinear in nature, and the energy equation used to govern the problem is tackled numerically with the semi-implicit finite difference method (FDM). The results are depicted graphically and discussed to give a theoretical understanding of the heat transfer analysis during combustion.  This study was done theoretically to make the understanding of the combustion process in a cheaper and a quicker way compared to the experimental one. The understanding of the imbedded parameters on heat transfer can help in the control of self-ignition process in the storage of reactive materials. This study can be extended to two-step exothermic chemical reaction processes.