Heat transfer in an assembly

[ricciolini]

Hi all,

I'm trying to simulate heat transfer in an assembly and having some difficulties. Any help would be much appreciated.

All the software is windows based. The assembly was designed on SolidWorks, saved as STEP, meshed on Salome and ElmerGui recognized the bodies and surfaces correctly (only one wall between two bodies).

The model was setup as follows:

- one heat equation selecting all bodies
- on each opposite side of the assembly there's a solid set as air (not really sure if needed), then other materials are aluminum and silicone (different heat conductivities)
- two boundary conditions on the heat equation tab defining Dirichlet Condition temperatures of 296(ambient temperature) and 198 (cold)

The result appear to be one solid, instead of an assembly. Any idea where I am getting it wrong?

Thank you in advance,

Miguel

heat transfer2.png

image heat transfer

(161.12 KiB) Not downloaded yet

Study_6.zip

settings

(217.59 KiB) Downloaded 364 times

[mzenker]

Hi,

if the attached image 'heat_transfer2.png' is your result, I don't understand what your problem is.

Matthias

[ricciolini]

Hi Mattias,

Thank you for the reply.

I thought that because I have different materials, I would see different heat distribution. The aluminum conducts heat better than silicone.

In this previous bellow, two solids of different materials surrounded by air show different heat distribution. I'm sure I'm getting something wrong but don't know where...

temp cross section1.png

cross section two solids surrounded by air

(93.48 KiB) Not downloaded yet

[mzenker]

Hi,

it depends where your hot and cold faces are in your second example. Since you do a steady state simulation, I am not surprised that in the stationary state the heat gradient between the hot and cold faces is the same for different materials, given that the materials are in parallel between hot and cold faces. I think you would see the effect you expect if you put the BCs at the outside of the air layers.

HTH,

Matthias