Intrinsic Verification of an Exact Analytical Solution in Transient Heat Conduction

The present work provides guidelines on how to perform as a whole the intrinsic verification of an exact analytical solution to a transient heat conduction problem. In particular, the addressed problem concerns a finite rectangular body in imperfect thermal contact with a highconductivity surface layer that might represent an experimental apparatus for thermal properties transient measurements. Also, a new useful tool termed ‘exact solution-based finite difference scheme’ using high precision is suggested. This tool ensures an accuracy of the solution to many significant figures (such as ten or even fifteen), far beyond the accuracy generally practicable from fully numerical solutions. This high accuracy is important not only for checking fully-numerical codes but also for calculating accurately the sensitivity coefficients (related to thermal properties estimation) when using a finite difference scheme.