GroupMethodAnalysisofthePotentialEquation inTriangularRegions.pdfVIP

Symmetry in Nonlinear Mathematical Physics 1997, V.2, 418–428. Group Method Analysis of the Potential Equation in Triangular Regions Y.Z. BOUTROS †, M.B. ABD-EL-MALEK †, I.A. EL-AWADI ‡ and S.M.A. EL-MANSI ‡ † Department of Engineering Mathematics and Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21544, Egypt E-mail: mina@alex.eun.eg ‡ Department of Physical Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dr. W. Fushchych, for his valuable contributions in the f ield and the sincere friendship Abstract The group transformation theoretic approach is applied to present an analytic study of the steady state temperature distribution in a general triangular region, Ω, for given boundary conditions, along two boundaries, in a form of polynomial functions in any degree “n”, as well as the study of heat flux along the third boundary. The Laplace’s equation has been reduced to a second order linear ordinary differential equation with appropriate boundary conditions. Analytical solution has been obtained for different shapes of Ω and different boundary conditions. 1 Introduction The Laplace’s equation arises in many branches of physics attracts a wide band of re- searchers. Electrostatic potential, temperature in the case of a steady state heat conduc- tion, velocity potential in the case of steady irrotational flow of ideal fluid, concentration of a substance that is diffusing through solid, and displacements of a two-dimensional membrane in equilibrium state, are counter examples in which the Laplace’s equation is satisfied. The mathematical technique used in the present analysis is the parameter-group trans- formation. The group methods, as a class of methods which lead to reduction of the number of independ