Meshless analysis of three-dimensional steady-state heat conduction problems

Steady-state heat conduction problems arisen in connection with various physical and engineering problems where the functions satisfy a given partial differential equation and particular boundary conditions, have attracted much attention and research recently. These problems are independent of time and involve only space coordinates, as in Poisson＇s equation or the Laplace equation with Dirichlet, Neuman, or mixed conditions. When the problems are too complex, it is difficult to find an analytical solution, the only choice left is an approximate numerical solution. This paper deals with the numerical solution of three-dimensional steady-state heat conduction problems using the meshless reproducing kernel particle method （RKPM）. A variational method is used to obtain the discrete equations. The essential boundary conditions are enforced by the penalty method. The effectiveness of RKPM for three-dimensional steady-state heat conduction problems is investigated by two numerical examples.