Transient heat conduction in a solid slab using multiple-scale analysis

In this paper we study the unsteady heat conduction due to a sudden temperature step in the external surfaces of a solid slab. In order to estimate the temperature profile in the solid, we applied the multiple-scale perturbation technique by identifying the “early” and “late” transient regimes for small values of the Biot number, Bi. In this sense, we have re-visited the classical lumped method, incorporating this particular case as an asymptotic limit, which is fully described by the “late” regime for small values of Bi. Once the temperature distribution is analytically predicted, this solution is compared against the exact solution and with other analytical results obtained by using regular perturbation techniques, for different values of the Biot number Bi. Observing a good agreement between the corresponding comparisons, we obtain a very simple and useful formula to predict the nondimensional temperature of the solid slab.