Hermite-Pade´ approach to thermal stability of reacting masses in a slab with asymmetric convective cooling

In this paper, the thermal stability of combustible materials uniformly distributed in a slab under Bimolecular, Arrhenius and Sensitised exothermic reactions is investigated. The slab surfaces are assumed to exchange heat asymmetrically with the ambient following Newton's cooling law. Using a perturbation method coupled with a special type of Hermite-Pade´ approximation technique, the governing non-linear differential equation is tackled analytically. The important properties of the temperature field including thermal criticality conditions are obtained. These critical constants for thermal stability of the slab are represented by turning point on the bifurcation diagram and may be significant to the service-worthiness of industrial products, to the life span of structures, as well as to public safety.