Transient Conduction in a Fin-Wall Assembly with Harmonic Excitation--Network Thermal Admittance

Abstract

Abstract The classical performance indicators for extended surfaces, efficiency and effectiveness, cannot be used for the proper design of finned systems subject to time-dependent processes, such as heat exchangers or electric devices. Based on the network simulation method, a network model of a fin-wall assembly, whose admittance is identical to the thermal admittance of the system, has been designed for the whole system. A new fin performance indicator, output admittance, is proposed, and frequency analysis of the system is carried out. The simulated numerical response is rapidly obtained by running the network in the appropriate circuit resolution software. This method is especially useful for studying complex thermal transmission functions such as admittance, evaluating modulus, phase, and real and imaginary components of the thermal signal.