STABLE, EXPLICIT NUMERICAL SOLUTION OF THE TRANSIENT HEAT CONDUCTION EQUATION IN CYLINDRICAL CO-ORDINATES.

Several difference schemes have been proposed, one of the latest and most convenient being the 'Alternating Direction' method of Saul'ev, which is both explicit and unconditionally stable, in rectangular co-ordinates. This paper describes the development of similar equations for use in polar co-ordinate systems. The explicit equations developed were in the one dimensional case, unconditionally stable and gave good accuracy. Stability could not be proven in the two dimensional case, but in a series of practical tests involving a wide range of conditions no evidence of instability was found.