Thermal Solutions
This section contains information regarding the material assignment, setup options, and results that are available for a Mechanical design, Thermal solution. There are two thermal solution types:
- Steady-State Thermal: Determines the temperature and heat flux distributions when a design with static boundaries and excitations reaches a state of equilibrium. In this state, the sum of heat in and out of all objects equals zero, and the temperature and heat flux results remain static. This solution type does not determine how long it takes for the design to reach steady-state conditions.
- Transient Thermal: This solution type determines how heat flux and temperature results vary over a defined period of time. As such, it solves the design at multiple time steps, as specified in the solution setup. Certain boundaries and excitations can vary over time for this solution type.
Organization of the Thermal Help Topics:
- Help for features unique to the transient solution type is located in the Transient Thermal Solutions subbranch.
- All remaining topics within the top-level Thermal Solutions folder are applicable to both steady-state and transient solution types, unless otherwise noted.
Note:
The following requirements apply for both steady-state and transient thermal solutions, unless otherwise indicated:
- The Thermal Conductivity must be defined for all assigned materials. Not all library materials include thermal properties.
For Transient thermal analyses, the Mass Density and Specific Heat must also be defined for all assigned materials.
- There must be a source of heat input (either a Heat Generation, Heat Flux, or EM Loss excitation; or a Temperature or Convection boundary).
- There must be a place for heat to escape (either a Temperature or Convection boundary). Additionally, for rotating machine models, a Rotating Fluid boundary is needed to provide heat flow across the gap between the rotating and stationary objects.
- Objects (whether solid, liquid, or gaseous) must be in contact with each other for heat to flow from one object to the next.
- By default, contact is automatically generated between adjacent objects and has zero resistance to the flow of heat. Assign Thermal Contact manually to impose thermal resistance between contacting parts.