A TESSELLATED CONTINUUM APPROACH TO THERMAL ANALYSIS: DISCONTINUITY NETWORKS

Tessellated continuum mechanics is an approach for the representation of thermo-mechanical behaviour of porous media on tessellated continua. It involves the application of iteration function schemes using affine contraction and expansion maps, respectively, for the creation of porous fractal materials and associated tessellated continua. Highly complex geometries can be produced using a modest number of contraction mappings. The associated tessellations form the mesh in a numerical procedure. This paper tests the hypothesis that thermal analysis of porous structures can be achieved using a discontinuous Galerkin finite element method on a tessellation. Discontinuous behaviour is identified at a discontinuity network in a tessellation; its use is shown to provide a good representation of the physics relating to cellular heat exchanger designs. Results for different cellular designs (with corresponding tessellations) are contrasted against those obtained from direct analysis and very high accuracy is observed.