ABSTRACT
Computational methods are often required for the analysis of engineering problems in complicated geometrical configurations. Several types of methods are available for the numerical solution of the heat transfer equations. These types of methods include: (i) integral formulations, (ii) direct methods (such as finite difference methods), and (iii) methods based on conservation principles (such as finite volume methods). Integral formulations may be further subdivided into weighted residual and variational methods. In the former case, an error type residual is minimized over the problem domain, whereas variational methods seek to minimize a certain function to find undetermined coefficients in the numerical solution. In this chapter, these numerical methods will be considered.
