Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea ISSN:1229-3059(Print) 2287-2302(Online) 한국전산구조공학회 논문집

The heat conduction problem with discontinuous material coefficients generally consists of the conservative equation, boundary condition, and interface condition, which should be additionally satisfied in the solution procedure. This feature often makes the development of new numerical schemes difficult as it induces a layered singularity in the solution fields; thus, a special approximation is required to capture the singular behavior. In addition to the approximation, the construction of a total system of equations is challenging. In this study, a wedge function is devised for enriching the approximation, and the interface condition itself is embedded in the moving least squares(MLS) derivative approximation to consistently satisfy the interface condition. The heat conduction problem is then discretized in a strong form using the developed derivative approximation, which is named as the interface immersed MLS difference method. This method is able to efficiently provide a numerical solution for such interface problems avoiding both numerical quadrature as well as extra difference equations related to the interface condition enforcement. Numerical experiments proved that the developed numerical method was highly accurate and computationally efficient at solving the heat conduction problem with interfacial jump as well as the problem with a geometrically induced interfacial singularity.