He's Homotopy Perturbation Method for Two-Dimensional Heat Conduction Equation: Comparison with Finite Element Method

Heat conduction appears in almost all natural and industrial processes. In the current study, a two-dimensional heat conduction equation with different complex Dirichlet boundary conditions has been studied. An analytical solution for the temperature distribution and gradient is derived using the homotopy perturbation method (HPM). Unlike most of previous studies in the field of analytical solution with homotopy-based methods which investigate the ODEs, we focus on the partial differential equation (PDE). Employing the Taylor series, the gained series has been converted to an exact expression describing the temperature distribution in the computational domain. Problems were also solved numerically employing the finite element method (FEM). Analytical and numerical results were compared with each other and excellent agreement was obtained. The present investigation shows the effectiveness of the HPM for the solution of PDEs and represents an exact solution for a practical problem. The mathematical procedure proves that the present mathematical method is much simpler than other analytical techniques due to using a combination of homotopy analysis and classic perturbation method. The current mathematical solution can be used in further analytical and numerical surveys as well as related natural and industrial applications even with complex boundary conditions as a simple accurate technique. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.