Heat Transfer physics work together with solid materials. This is where you configure and define how solid materials will behave in your simulation. Use heat transfer physics for conjugate heat transfer (CHT) simulations.
Heat Sources
Heat sources are used to simulate energy generation or energy sinks within a volume. You can specify heat sources by Power (W) or Power per unit volume (W/m3), then select which volumes to apply these settings to.
To create new heat sources, expand Heat Transfer physics in the control panel, then click the + icon next to Heat Sources.
Tabulated Heat Source Profiles
For transient simulations that require a temporal heat source, you can upload a tabulated profile in CSV format and use it as input for your heat source in Power (W) or Power per unit volume (W/m3).
Make sure your file is formatted as follows:
A header row isn’t required, but recommended. If you are using a header row, it can contain any text.
The first column must be Time (s). This column can't have missing entries.
Subsequent columns should contain Power (W) or Power per unit volume (W/m3) quantities. There must be at least 2 columns total. These can have missing entries.
Select the heat source in the control panel.
In the properties panel, toggle the Tabulated Profile option on.
Click Upload File and select your CSV from the file browser.
Click Save.
Profile Type will be automatically set to Time.
Click in the Heat Source Power box and choose a column from the list.
Advanced Solver Settings
This is where you can adjust Spatial Discretization and Solution Controls settings.
Spatial Discretization
Define the schemes for handling spatial gradients and convective terms. This setting controls the accuracy of your simulation, noting that options for higher accuracy may lead to solution stability problems. There are three preset selections of settings that you can choose from:
Default provides a balance between robustness and accuracy.
Conservative is the most robust option for your toughest meshes and problems. If necessary, it will sacrifice solution accuracy for robustness.
High Accuracy attempts to be as accurate as possible and avoids most artificial dissipation, which may lead to stability issues.
Solution Controls
This section controls how quickly your simulation will converge, noting that the quicker the desired convergence, the more unstable the process can be.
There are three preset selections of settings that you can choose from:
Default (Conservative) uses settings that emphasize robustness.
Intermediate Performance provides a balance between speed and robustness.
Aggressive Performance uses settings biased towards speed.
As you move up from the default preset to the aggressive preset, the robustness of the solution method will decrease, but the potential time to a converged solution will also decrease.
Custom Settings
Click Customize to finely control Spatial Discretization and Solution Controls settings.
Note: We suggest trying the presets described above before using Custom settings.