Summary and Discussion - Chapter 3

Abstract

The above papers show that at all time domains the heat diffusion equation is the basic tool on which not only the heat flow but also the mass transport, either diffusive of convective, can be modeled. In the case of mass transport other tools are also needed, such as the particle diffusion equation, in several versions according to the physical phenomenon to be depicted, or such as the hydrodynamical momentum equations. The degree of complexity and sophistication has attained quite unequal levels in the different areas of interest; the modeling of convective motions seems by far to be the most difficult (according to Mazumder, writing a computer code which models three-dimensional convective motions means to graduate in supercomputing!).