
2D HEAT EQUATION IN CARTESIAN COORDINATES 237
which is implicit in x only. This semi-implicit equation has only three unknowns.
The u quantities along a given x line are taken from the t = n time plane, and are
known values. See Figure 9.10 for a visual understanding of the computation cell for
this case. The new values of u are calculated in a single step for the single line using
n-f
1
/ / / / /
y
+· x
Figure 9.10 Node configuration for a semi-implicit
FD
version of
the 2D
heat equation.
a system of equations and the tridiagonal matrix as in the ID implicit case. Such
a method has to be used for each line on the new time plane. Therefore, the new
values for the dependent variable on the new time plane are calculated by "sweeping"
through the plane in either the x direction or the y direction. Typically, the sweep
direction alternates from one time step to the next, hence the name "alternating."
This semi-implicit method must use an iterative procedure in order to calculate
new values for u for the entire time plane. Here is why. The first row for which u
is changeable is that directly adjacent to the boundary. We will refer to this row as
"row 2." The boundary row is "row 1" and the second interior row is "row 3," and
so on. Rows 1 and 3 are used to calculate new values for row 2, but must be treated
as known quantities. Well, row 3 is a variable row, so it must be calculated as well.
So,
after row 2 is calculated, we use row 2 to calculate row 3, and row 3 will most
likely be different than it was when we used it to calculate row 2. So the values we
calculated for row 2 are no longer valid because row 3 is now different than it was
when we used it to calculate row 2. So, after we are done sweeping through the
t = n + l time plane, we must go back and sweep again using the new values for u
on adjacent rows to calculate u values on a given row. You can see that this process
must be repeated again and again because it suffers from the same problem on each
sweep. Luckily, this iterative process, sweeping time and time again, converges for
the whole time plane to values of u that solve the semi-implicit equation and the fully
implicit form if it were used.