Nanoscale Heat Transfer using Phonon Boltzmann Transport Equation

Abstract

COMSOL Multiphysics was used to solve a phonon Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) for nanoscale heat transport problems. One-dimensional steady-state and transient BTE problems were successfully solved based on finite element and discrete ordinate methods for spatial and angular discretizations, respectively by utilizing the built-in feature of the COMSOL Coefficient Form of PDE. A sensitivity study was conducted with various discretization refinements for different values of the Knudsen number, which is a measure of the nanoscale regime. It was found that sufficient refinement for angular discretization is critical in obtaining accurate solutions of the BTE.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA592634

Entities

People

  • Ajit K. Roy
  • Sangwook Sihn

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Boltzmann Equation
  • Coefficients
  • Computational Science
  • Differential Equations
  • Distribution Functions
  • Equations
  • Gaussian Quadrature
  • Heat Energy
  • Heat Flux
  • Heat Transfer
  • Knudsen Number
  • Molecular Dynamics
  • Partial Differential Equations
  • Steady State
  • Temperature Gradients

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Fluid Dynamics.