We developed this spreadsheet to accompany the HTTtwodss.exe module. It includes instructions and space in which to do a step-by-step tutorial, a two-dimension fin problem (complete with data from a corresponding DC electrical analog of the problem) and another 2-D problem for the student to set up.
Contour plot of temperature field T(x,y) for a 2D fin problem. The upper half of the left boundary is at a fixed temperature; the upper and lower surfaces of the fin and other edges experience to convection. We used the very course (6×8) mesh to match a lumped physical analog exactly.
With careful selection of the internal sources and sinks, we create computational “art” as well:
Computational “art” created within the 2D steady-state conduction module by judicious choice of sources and sinks in the Poisson equation. The manual creation of plots like this (by specifying the distribution of sources and sinks) will teach the would-be artist a lot about 1st and 2nd derivatives.
