The Utilization of MS Excel Spreadsheet in Solving the Two-Dimensional Conduction Heat Transfer Equation on a Square Plate: Explicit vs Crank-Nicolson Method
Rosliana Eso (a), Mardiana Napirah (a*), Ida Usman (b), La Ode Safiuddin (a), Arman (c), Tahir (c), La Aba (b), Sayahdin Alfat (a), Husein (a), La Sahara (a)

a) Department of Physics Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Halu Oleo, Jl. H.E.A. Mokodompit No. 1, Kendari, 93232, Indonesia
*mardiana.napirah[at]uho.ac.id
b) Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Halu Oleo, Jl. H.E.A. Mokodompit No. 1, Kendari, 93232, Indonesia
c) Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Halu Oleo, Jl. H.E.A. Mokodompit No. 1, Kendari, 93232, Indonesia

Abstract

A research on comparing two numerical method in solving two-dimensional conduction heat transfer equation on a square plate had been done. The numerical method being compared were Explicit method and Crank-Nicholson method and the computation were conducted by utilizing Spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. In order to obtain information about which method give higher accuracy, the results were compared to the exact calculation by analytic method. The data used in this research were thermal conductivity of the medium of the square plate, the width of dx and dy grid, and also initial and boundary conditions. The results obtained showed that Crank-Nicolson method has higher accuracy than Explicit method. This research also demontrated that with proper utilization, MS Excel can be compared with other numerical software in solving two dimensional conduction heat transfer equation on a square plate.

Keywords: two-dimensional conduction heat transfer- numerical method- explicit method- Crank-Nicolson method- MS Excel utilization

Topic: Modelling and Computational Physics