Unsteady mixed convection heat transfer along a vertical stretching surface with variable viscosity and viscous dissipation

The effect of variable viscosity on laminar mixed convection flow and heat transfer along a semi-infinite unsteady stretching sheet taking into account the effect of viscous dissipation is studied. The flow of the fluid and subsequent heat transfer from the stretching surface is investigated with the aid of suitable transformation variables. Solutions for the velocity and temperature fields are obtained for some representative values of the unsteadiness parameter, variable viscosity parameter, mixed convection parameter and Eckert number. Typical velocity and temperature profiles, the local skin friction coefficient and the local heat transfer rate are presented at selected controlling parameters.     

Optimal control of a heat transfer problem with convective boundary condition

We consider the problem of controlling the solution of the heat equation with the convective boundary condition taking the heat transfer coefficient as the control. We take as our cost functional the sum of theL ²-norms of the control and the difference between the temperature attained and the desired temperature. We establish the existence of solutions of the underlying initial boundary-value problem and of an optimal control that minimizes the cost functional. We derive an optimality system by formally differentiating the cost functional with respect to the control and evaluating the result at an optimal control. We show how the solution depends in a differentiable way on the control using appropriate a priori estimates. We establish existence and uniqueness of the solution of the optimality system, and thus determine the unique optimal control in terms of the solution of the optimality system.This research was sponsored by the Applied Mathematical Sciences Research Program, Office of Energy Research, U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-84OR21400 with the Martin Marietta Energy Systems. The authors thank David R. Adams for his assistance in clarifying the proof of Proposition 2.1 and appreciate the comments of the referees for needed revisions.     

Optimal performance of an endoreversible three-mass-reservoir chemical pump with diffusive mass transfer law

The performance of an isothermal endoreversible three-mass-reservoir chemical pump, in which the mass transfer obeys diffusive law, is analyzed and optimized in this paper. The relation between the coefficient of performance and the rate of energy pumping of the isothermal chemical pump is derived by using finite-time thermodynamics. Moreover, the optimal operating regions and the influences of some parameters on the performance of the cycle are studied. The results obtained herein can provide some new theoretical guidelines for the optimal design of a class of apparatus such as mass exchangers, and electrochemical, photochemical, and solid-state devices, as well as fuel pumps for solar-energy conversion systems.     

Heat transfer in a visco-elastic fluid past a stretching sheet with viscous dissipation and internal heat generation

This paper deals with the study of heat transfer characteristics in the laminar boundary layer flow of a visco-elastic fluid over a linearly stretching continuous surface with variable wall temperature subjected to suction or blowing. The study considers the effects of frictional heating (viscous dissipation) and internal heat generation or absorption. An analysis has been carried out for two different cases of heating processes namely: (i) Prescribed surface temperature (PST) and (ii) Prescribed wall heat flux (PHF) to get the effect of visco-elastic parameter for various situations. Further increase of visco-elastic parameter is to decrease the skin friction on the sheet. The solutions for the temperature and the heat transfer characteristics are obtained in terms of Kummers function. Received: June 16, 2004; revised: February 8, 2005     

Rotating disk flow and heat transfer through a porous medium of a non-Newtonian fluid with suction and injection

The steady flow of an incompressible viscous non-Newtonian fluid above an infinite rotating porous disk in a porous medium is studied with heat transfer. A uniform injection or suction is applied through the surface of the disk. Numerical solutions of the non-linear differential equations which govern the hydrodynamics and energy transfer are obtained. The effect of the porosity of the medium, the characteristics of the non-Newtonian fluid and the suction or injection velocity on the velocity and temperature distributions is considered. The inclusion of the three effects, the porosity, the non-Newtonian characteristics, and the suction or injection velocity together has shown some interesting effects.     

Optimal control of a finite dam with a sample path constraint

In this paper, we discuss the 2-stage output procedure of a finite dam under the condition that water must be released by a fixed time. From this standpoint, the reservoir model we consider is subject to a sample path constraint and has a more general cost function than the earlier contributions. We analytically derive explicit formulas for the long-run average and the expected total discounted costs for an infinite time span and numerically calculate the optimal control policy. Finally, the optimal policy is compared with one by Zuckerman [1] and the effect of the fixed release time is discussed further.     

Optimal risk transfer for agents with germs

We introduce a new class of risk measures called generalized entropic risk measures (GERMS) that allow economic agents to have different attitudes towards different sources of risk. We formulate the problem of optimal risk transfer in terms of these risk measures and characterize the optimal transfer contract. The optimal contract involves what we call intertemporal source-dependent quotient sharing, where agents linearly share changes in the aggregate risk reserve that occur in response to shocks to the system over time, with scaling coefficients that depend on the attitudes of each agent towards the source of risk causing the shock. Generalized entropic risk measures are not dilations of a common base risk measure, so our results extend the class of risk measures for which explicit characterizations of the optimal transfer contract can be found.     

Combined effect of magnetic field and heat absorption on unsteady free convection and heat transfer flow in a micropolar fluid past a semi-infinite moving plate with viscous dissipation using element free Galerkin method

The fully developed electrically conducting micropolar fluid flow and heat transfer along a semi-infinite vertical porous moving plate is studied including the effect of viscous heating and in the presence of a magnetic field applied transversely to the direction of the flow. The Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer model which includes the effects of boundary and inertia forces is employed. The differential equations governing the problem have been transformed by a similarity transformation into a system of non-dimensional differential equations which are solved numerically by element free Galerkin method. Profiles for velocity, microrotation and temperature are presented for a wide range of plate velocity, viscosity ratio, Darcy number, Forchhimer number, magnetic field parameter, heat absorption parameter and the micropolar parameter. The skin friction and Nusselt numbers at the plates are also shown graphically. The present problem has significant applications in chemical engineering, materials processing, solar porous wafer absorber systems and metallurgy.     

Homotopy analysis method for the asymmetric laminar flow and heat transfer of viscous fluid between contracting rotating disks

The present work investigates the effects of the disks contracting, rotation, heat transfer and different permeability on the viscous fluids and temperature distribution between two heated contracting rotating disks. Two cases are considered. For the first case, we neglect the viscous dissipation effects in the energy equation and reduce the Navier-Stokes equations and energy equation into nonlinear coupled ODEs by introducing the Von Kármán type similarity transformations. The effects of various physical parameters like expansion ratio, Prandtl number, Reynolds number and rotation ratio on the velocity and temperature are discussed in detail. The second and more general case is that we consider the viscous dissipation in the energy equation. Under this assumption, the energy equation is reduced to a ordinary differential equation including the Eckert number, whose solution also is solved by HAM.     

Optimal impulse control for a multidimensional cash management system with generalized cost functions

We consider the optimal control of a multidimensional cash management system where the cash balances fluctuate as a homogeneous diffusion process in Rⁿ${\mathbb{R}}^n$. We formulate the model as an impulse control problem on an unbounded domain with unbounded cost functions. Under general assumptions we characterize the value function as a weak solution of a quasi-variational inequality in a weighted Sobolev space and we show the existence of an optimal policy. Moreover we prove the local uniform convergence of a finite element scheme to compute numerically the value function and the optimal cost. We compute the solution of the model in two-dimensions with linear and distance cost functions, showing what are the shapes of the optimal policies in these two simple cases. Finally our third numerical experiment computes the solution in the realistic case of the cash concentration of two bank accounts made by a centralized treasury.     

A linear quadratic control problem for the stochastic heat equation driven by Q-Wiener processes

We consider a control problem for the stochastic heat equation with Neumann boundary condition, where controls and noise terms are defined inside the domain as well as on the boundary. The noise terms are given by independent Q-Wiener processes. Under some assumptions, we derive necessary and sufficient optimality conditions stochastic controls have to satisfy. Using these optimality conditions, we establish explicit formulas with the result that stochastic optimal controls are given by feedback controls. This is an important conclusion to ensure that the controls are adapted to a certain filtration. Therefore, the state is an adapted process as well.     

Quasi-least-squares finite element method for steady flow and heat transfer with system rotation

Two quasi-least-squares finite element schemes based on L ² inner product are proposed to solve a steady Navier–Stokes equations, coupled to the energy equation by the Boussinesq approximation and augmented by a Coriolis forcing term to account for system rotation. The resulting nonlinear systems are linearized around a characteristic state, resulting in linearized least-squares models that yield algebraic systems with symmetric positive definite coefficient matrices. Existence of solutions are investigated and a priori error estimates are obtained. The performance of the formulation is illustrated by using a direct iteration procedure to treat the nonlinearities and shown theoretical convergent rate for general initial guess.     

Similarity solutions for flow and heat transfer over a permeable surface with convective boundary condition

The steady laminar boundary layer flow over a permeable flat plate in a uniform free stream, with the bottom surface of the plate is heated by convection from a hot fluid is considered. Similarity solutions for the flow and thermal fields are possible if the mass transpiration rate at the surface and the convective heat transfer from the hot fluid on the lower surface of the plate vary like x^−1/2, where x is the distance from the leading edge of the solid surface. The governing partial differential equations are first transformed into ordinary differential equations, before being solved numerically. The effects of the governing parameters on the flow and thermal fields are thoroughly examined and discussed.     

A finite element method for heat transfer of power‐law flow in channels with a transverse magnetic field

Heat transfer of a power‐law non‐Newtonian incompressible fluid in channels with porous walls has not been carefully studied using a proper numerical method despite a few constructions of approximate analytic solutions through the similarity transformation and perturbation method for Newtonian fluids (i.e. power‐law index being one). In this paper, we propose a finite element method for the thermal incompressible flow equations. The incompressible condition is treated by a penalty formulation. Numerical solutions are validated by comparing them with an approximate analytic solution of the Navier–Stokes equation in the Newtonian fluid case. Then, the method is used to simulate the heat transfer of various power‐law fluids. Additionally, unlike previous studies, we allow the thermal diffusivity to be a function of temperature gradient. The effect of different values of the parameters on the temperature and velocity is also discussed in this paper. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time Discretisation and Rate of Convergence for the Optimal Control of Continuous-Time Stochastic Systems with Delay

We study a semi-discretisation scheme for stochastic optimal control problems whose dynamics are given by controlled stochastic delay (or functional) differential equations with bounded memory. Performance is measured in terms of expected costs. By discretising time in two steps, we construct a sequence of approximating finite-dimensional Markovian optimal control problems in discrete time. The corresponding value functions converge to the value function of the original problem, and we derive an upper bound on the discretisation error or, equivalently, a worst-case estimate for the rate of convergence.     

The P1 and P2 approximations of the spherical harmonic method as applied to radiative heat transfer computations with allowance for strong blowing from the surface of a vehicle moving in the Jovian atmosphere

The spherical harmonics method in the P₁ and P₂ approximations is used to analyze radiative heat transfer for a space vehicle entering a planet’s atmosphere. Strong blowing of ablated materials from the vehicle surface is taken into account by using a two-layer flow model without allowance for the viscosity and thermal conduction of the gas. The heating and ablation of a multilayered thermal protection system are determined simultaneously with the vehicle’s flight trajectory, which is calculated taking into account the mass loss due to the ablation. The approach is illustrated by computing the flight of a space vehicle shaped as a spherical segment or a spherically blunted cone entering the Jovian atmosphere at a speed of 60 km/s and an entry angle of ?5°.