Elmer Discussion Forum

Hi,

I am new to Elmer, and been going through some of the tutorials which are all very helpful. However I want to model heat transfer at cryogenic temperatures, and I'm not sure if I don't understand something fundamentally, or that I'm running into some limitation.

To boil down & simplify the problem: I want get the temperature of an object that has current running through it, while it's being cooled at some interfaces of that object. E.g.a rod that's cooled on both ends, while current runs through. I would expect something like combining heat equation and the static current solver to the same body, and somewhere to couple the equations. Ideally, I would also like to include radiation heating/cooling into account which adds another equation.

Can this be done using Elmer, or are the solvers always independent?

Thanks!

Kind regards,
Matt

Hi Matt,

This is spot on the type of application Elmer likes.

The tutorials are just tutorials for beginners. If you have 10 equations then you can easily create 10 basic single-equation tutorials. But for two or more equations the type of possible problems easily explodes and it is not easy to enumerate all the types of problems possible.

Here coupling would be through Joule heating and temperature dependent parameters. The coupling can be weak. If there are some convergence problems then some relaxation helps usually.

There is also a strongly coupled thermoelectric model but that is mainly for cases cases where these two fields are inherently coupled. Not for this type of case.

If you have problems just create a minimal case with HeatSolver & StatCurrentSolver and share the case for comments. The coupling is just minor icing on the cake.

-Peter

This is a case that was combining the heat equation with the static current, including joule heating. Good discussion, but not sure this case was completely solved, but provides the overall approach.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7062&hilit=8mm

Thanks for the responses all . I've gone through the initial learning curve, I just misunderstood that you can just 'check/uncheck' various solvers for each body. Anyway I've gotten much further:
I've also attached my SIF file and I think this makes sense. However I'm not sure if I addressed the boundary conditions correctly. What I want is to define a fixed current, and compute the voltage drop. Currently I'ved added a 0V BC on one face, and a currrent density at another. Is this the way to go?

Secondly, I would like to get things like temperature profiles and wattages (energy dissipation) as well, but these are not in the default Elmer VTK viewer. Is there a way to view these? I'm sorry if these are very obvious questions.

Thanks!
matt