A consecutive-interpolation finite element method for heat transfer analysis

Abstract

A consecutive-interpolation 4-node quadrilateral finite element (CQ4) is further extended to solve two-dimensional heat transfer problems, taking the average nodal gradients as interpolation condition, resulting in high-order continuity solution without smoothing operation and without increasing the number of degrees of freedom. The implementation is straightforward and can be easily integrated into any existing FEM code. Several numerical examples are investigated to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed formulation in two-dimensional heat transfer analysis.