grheat 0.5.1

Green's functions for point, line, and planar heat sources.

by Scott Prahl

Green’s Functions for the Heat Equation

grheat implements analytic Green’s function solutions of the heat equation:

ρ c ∂T/∂t = k ∇²T + q

or:

∂T/∂t = 𝛼 ∇² T + q/(ρ c)

for a semi-infinite medium. It is a library of closed-form temperature-rise solutions, not a grid-based PDE solver.

Green’s functions are especially useful for heat-transfer problems because they make the structure of the solution explicit:

• the source geometry is encoded analytically

• time dependence can often be handled by convolution or finite pulse differences

• boundary conditions can be enforced exactly with image sources

• results are fast to evaluate and easy to compare against numerical simulations

That is the role of grheat: it provides reusable implementations of these analytic solutions so you can work directly with the physics of the heat equation instead of re-deriving the formulas each time.

What The Package Implements

The core classes correspond to canonical Green’s-function source geometries:

• Point: a point heat source at (xp, yp, zp) inside the medium

• Line: an infinite x-directed line source passing through (yp, zp)

• Plane: an infinite xy-planar source at depth zp

• ExponentialVolumeSource: exponentially decaying volumetric heating caused by uniform surface illumination

• ExponentialColumnSource: exponentially decaying volumetric heating caused by point illumination on the surface

Each class provides methods for common temporal source profiles:

• instantaneous(...) for impulsive deposition

• continuous(...) for sources that turn on and remain on

• pulsed(...) for finite-duration deposition

The medium occupies the half-space below the surface z = 0 and surface boundary conditions are handled analytically with the method of images. The supported boundary conditions are:

• infinite: no surface constraint

• adiabatic: no heat flow across the surface, dT/dz = 0

• zero: the surface is held at T = 0

All methods return temperature rise, not absolute temperature.

The analytic solutions in grheat assume:

• a homogeneous, isotropic medium

• constant thermal properties

• a semi-infinite geometry

• idealized source geometries with exact Green’s-function solutions

If you need spatially varying properties, finite geometries, or arbitrary boundaries, you will generally want a numerical PDE solver instead.

Quick Start

The example below computes the surface temperature rise caused by uniform illumination that creates an exponentially decaying volume source. The ExponentialVolumeSource class is an analytic Green’s-function solution for volumetric heating proportional to mu_a exp(-mu_a z).

import grheat
import numpy as np

mu_a = 0.25 * 1000            # absorption coefficient [1/m]
z = 0                         # depth [m]
t = np.linspace(0, 0.5, 100)  # time [s]

medium = grheat.ExponentialVolumeSource(mu_a, boundary="adiabatic")

# Temperature rise for unit irradiance; scale by your actual irradiance as needed.
dT = medium.continuous(z, t)

A point-source example looks like this:

import grheat
import numpy as np

source = grheat.Point(0, 0, 1e-3, boundary="zero")
t = np.linspace(1e-3, 0.1, 200)

# Temperature rise from a unit instantaneous point source
dT = source.instantaneous(0, 0, 0, t)

Full documentation, API reference, and example notebooks are available at grheat.readthedocs.io:

Installation

Install with pip:

pip install grheat

Or with conda:

conda install -c conda-forge grheat

If you want to run the notebooks in the browser with no local installation, use the JupyterLite deployment on GitHub Pages:

Documentation and Examples

The full documentation, API reference, and example notebooks are available at grheat.readthedocs.io:

If you want to run the notebooks in the browser with no local installation, use the JupyterLite deployment on GitHub Pages:

Citation

If you use grheat in academic, instructional, or applied technical work, please cite:

Prahl, S. (2026). grheat: a python module for heat transfer Green’s functions (Version 0.5.0) [Computer software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10030670

BibTeX:

@software{prahl_grheat_2026,
  author  = {Scott Prahl},
  title   = {{grheat}: a python module for heat transfer {G}reen's functions},
  url     = {https://github.com/scottprahl/grheat},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.10030670},
  year    = {2026},
  version = {0.5.0},
  publisher = {Zenodo}
}

References

The implementations are based on standard heat-conduction results, especially:

• Carslaw, H. S., and Jaeger, J. C., Conduction of Heat in Solids, (1959).

• Prahl, Scott A., “Charts to rapidly estimate temperature following laser irradiation,” Proc. SPIE 2391 (1995)

License

grheat is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.