Microsoft Excel Heat Transfer Add In For Engineering Courses

The application of computer software is central in modern engineering instruction. Software has been specifically designed for courses and some textbooks are packaged with specialized versions of popular software. However, a survey of University of Alabama alumni shows that the majority primarily uses MS Excel for engineering computations compared to those that commonly use engineering software packages. The wide availability of MS Excel contributes to its use. With this in mind, an Add-in for MS Excel is being developed to provide a useful package of engineering functions for heat transfer instruction. The initial Add-in was developed to calculate the dimensionless temperature for 1-D transient heat conduction in a solid. The Add-in includes 4 functions which handle a plane wall, infinite cylinder, sphere and semi-infinite solid. Additional modules have been developed to calculate the local or average Nusselt number for internal or external flows and the view factors for different 3-D radiation heat transfer setups. Currently, these three modules are presented separately as part of a Heat Transfer course, but could be combined into a single Add-in. The paper discusses the development, testing and application of these Add-in modules. A major part of the effort was the development of algorithms to compute the transient conduction solutions in a timely manner. After some refinement, sufficiently efficient functions were developed. The Add-in provides a tool for engineers for the widely-used MS Excel. As a learning tool, the Add-in provides a demonstration of the underlying formulas for a heat transfer course.