Combined interface boundary condition method for coupled thermal simulations

A new procedure for modeling the conjugate heat-transfer process between fluid and structure subdomains is presented. The procedure relies on higher-order combined interface boundary conditions (CIBC) for improved accuracy and stability. Traditionally, continuity of temperature and heat flux along interfaces is satisfied through algebraic jump conditions in a staggered fashion. More specifically, Dirichlet temperature conditions are usually imposed on the fluid side and Neumann heat-flux conditions are imposed on the solid side for the stability of conventional sequential staggered procedure. In this type of treatment, the interface introduces additional stability constraints to the coupled thermal simulations. By utilizing the CIBC technique on the Dirichlet boundary conditions, a staggered procedure can be constructed with the same order of accuracy and stability as those of standalone computations. Using the Godunov-Ryabenkii normal-mode analysis, a range of values of the coupling parameter is found that yields a stable and accurate interface discretization. The effectiveness of the method is investigated by presenting and discussing performance evaluation data using a ID finite-difference formulation for each subdomain. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.