CFD models are often used to calculate the heat transfer coefficients for all types of flows, including natural, forced, and mixed convection.
More complicated heat transfer effects like viscous heating, compressibility, real material models, and phase change including flashing, evaporation, cavitation, and boiling can be included.
CFD Consulting Projects
Tablet and Laptop
The thermal management for a mixed convection-cooled Intel i7 Laptop and a natural convection-cooled ARM tablet were calculated. The temperatures were matched to experimental data. The matching required accurate prediction of the convection, conduction, and radiation heat paths.
Steam Turbine Building
The natural and forced convection heat transfer were modeled for an HVAC system for a large industrial building that contained numerous pieces of complex industrial equipment and heat sources. The model was then used to evaluate the HVAC design at several different load conditions and potential layout variations.
Direct Contact Steam Heating Tank
The heating time and thermal mixing of a transient batch direct contact heating process for a nuclear sludge tank were modeled. The model required capturing numerous complex physics, including free surface, multiphase, phase change, Bingham plastic mixing model material models, and long transient duration.
Electronic Enclosures
The conductive, radiative, and mixed convective heat transfer were modeled for several commercial chips with three different enclosure designs for a large semiconducting company.
MEMS Device
The transient thermal performance of a small MEMS device with a natural convection cooling system was modeled under a few different thermal loading cases.
Related Ansys CFD Software Capabilities
- Full energy equation, including high-Mach number compressibility effects
- Conduction and convection through solids and fluids, including force and natural (buoyancy-driven) convection
- Radiation models including P1, surface-to-surface, and ray tracing
- Phase change and boiling models
- Temperature-dependent material properties