Generalized Eshelby's inclusion and inhomogeneity problems for transient heat transfer

Abstract: Eshelby's problems have been generalized to arbitrary shape of polygonal, polyhedral, and ellipsoidal inclusions embedded in an infinite isotropic domain under transient heat transfer, and Eshelby's tensors have been analytically derived to evaluate disturbed thermal fields caused by inclusions with a polynomial-form eigen-fields. Transformed coordinates are applied to arbitrarily shaped inclusions for domain integrals of transient fundamental solutions. This formulation is for general transient heat transfer, and it can recover classic Eshelby's tensor for the ellipsoidal subdomain with explicit expression for the spherical subdomain in the steady state and Michelitsch's solution in the harmonic state. The discontinuity and singularity of domain integral for Eshelby's tensor are investigated and the temporal effects are discussed. The formulation for a polyhedral inhomogeneity is verified with the finite element method results and the classic solution of a spherical inhomogeneity problem when the sphere is divided into many polyhedrons. The generalized formulation for Eshelby's problem enables the simulation and modeling of particulate composites containing arbitrarily shaped particles for steady-state, harmonic and transient heat transfer in both two- and three-dimensional space.