An edge-based smoothed point interpolation method (ES-PIM) for heat transfer analysis of rapid manufacturing system

Abstract This paper formulates an edge-based smoothed point interpolation method (ES-PIM) for analyzing 2D and 3D transient heat transfer problems with mixed boundary conditions and complicated geometries. In the ES-PIM, shape functions are constructed using the polynomial PIM with the Delta function property for easy treatment of essential boundary conditions. A generalized smoothing technique is used to reconstruct the temperature gradient field within the edge-based smoothing domains. The generalized smoothed Galerkin weak form is then used to establish the discretized system equations. Our results show that the ES-PIM can provide more close-to-exact stiffness compared with the “overly-stiff” finite element method (FEM) and the “overly-soft” node-based smoothed point interpolation method (NS-PIM). Owing to this important property, the present ES-PIM provides more accurate solutions than standard FEM using the same mesh. As an example, a practical cooling system of the rapid direct plasma deposition dieless manufacturing is studied in detail using the present ES-PIM, and a set of “optional” processing parameters of fluid velocity and temperature are found.