Steady state temperature; Laplacian; Dirichlet …（稳态温度;）.pdf

Steady state temperature; Laplacian; Dirichlet problems. Suppose we have an insulated wire, a plate, or a 3-dimensional object. We apply certain fixed temper- atures on the ends of the wire, the edges of the plate or on all sides of the 3-dimensional object. We wish to find out what is the steady state temperature distribution. That is, we wish to know what will be the temperature after long enough period of time. We are really looking for a solution to the heat equation that is not dependent on time. Let us first do this in one space variable. We are looking for a function u that satisfies ut = kuxx , (1) but such that ut = 0 for all x and t. Hence, we are looking for a function of x alone that satisfies uxx = 0. It is easy to solve this equation by integration and we see that u = Ax + B for some constants A and B . Suppose we have an isolated wire, and we apply constant temperature T1 at one end (say where x = 0) and T2 and the other end (at x = L where L is the length of the rod). Then our steady state solution is T2 − T1 u(x) = x + T1 . (2) L This agrees with our common sense intuition with how the heat should be distributed in the wire. So in one dimension, the steady state solutions are basically just straight lines. Things are much more complicated in two or more dimensions. Let us restrict to two dimensions for simplicity. The heat equation in two variables is ut = k(uxx + uyy ),