Steady-State and Transient Heat Conduction Analysis Using a Polygonal Cell-Based Smoothed Finite Element Method

Abstract

This paper presents a polygonal cell-based smoothed finite element method (CS-FEM) for two-dimensional steady-state and transient heat-conduction analysis. In the proposed formulation, Wachspress shape functions are employed to construct the temperature approximation over general polygonal elements, and the smoothed temperature gradient is evaluated through boundary integration over cell-based smoothing domains. The resulting formulation is implemented in ABAQUS through the user-defined element (UEL) interface, enabling heat-conduction analysis using polygonal meshes within a commercial finite element environment. Several numerical examples, including a linear patch test, steady-state benchmark problems, and transient heat-conduction problems with different boundary conditions, are investigated to verify the accuracy, convergence behavior, and robustness of the proposed method. The numerical results show good agreement with analytical or reference solutions. Compared with conventional FEM using triangular and quadrilateral elements, the proposed polygonal CS-FEM exhibits favorable accuracy and convergence performance, while providing greater flexibility in mesh generation for complex geometries. The proposed framework therefore offers an accurate and robust numerical approach for steady-state and transient heat-conduction analysis.