Constant Temperature at the Surface of an Initially Uniform Temperature, Variable Conductivity Half Space

The transient temperature distribution resulting from a constant and uniform temperature being imposed on the surface of an initially uniform temperature, variable conductivity half space is studied. Various solution expansion ideas are discussed. These are utilized in the solution of an example problem, and the resulting approximate analytic solutions representations are compared to exact numerical results. One of these approximations is found to be superior to the others, and, in fact, it is shown to yield useful results over a range of variables where the nonlinearities of the problem are significant.