DESIGN OF A TRILAMINATED RECTANGULAR FIN

A continuum mixture theory combined with the linear operator method is used to solve the problem of transient heat conduction in a rectangular trilaminated fin. Applying the continuum mixture theory and the linear operator method reduces the problem to that of a coupled Sturm-Liouville problem. A method is developed to find eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the coupled Sturm-Liouville problem. Transient conduction in both symmetrical and asymmetrical rectangular fins is illustrated. It turns out that the asymmetrical fin performs better than the symmetrical one in terms of efficiency.