The governing equations for heat transfer and fluid flow are often formulated in a general form for the simplification of discretization and programming, which has achieved great success in thermal science and engineering. Based on the analysis of the popular general form of governing equations, we found that energy conservation cannot be guaranteed when specific heat capacity is not constant, which may lead to unreliable results. A new concept of generalized density is put forward, based on which a new general form of governing equations is proposed to guarantee energy conservation. A number of calculation examples have been employed to verify validation and feasibility.
