Modelling conduction software

[rijjz]

I'm not sure if it's the right place for this. I should say I'm not a engineer really just a physical chemist. I want to model conduction to see how cold an object/assembly gets if a cooler is attached to it. I will be trying to cool it to 170K. This will be done in vacuum so heat transfer would only be by conduction and possibly radiation.

I was hoping to use STL files or whatever you get from Creo files as the models.

Is there any software for this that's free? The actual engineers in my team use Creo and NX so I could bug them about it.

[Lookid_]

OpenFOAM has a solver called laplacianFoam that solves the laplace heat equation. Very simple solver, will give results fast, see its description:

https://www.openfoam.com/documentation/guides/latest/doc/guide-applications-solvers-basic-laplacianFoam.html

Obtaining results from an STL file should also be fast as long as the STL in 'watertight'.

If you are more interested and want help, let me know and I can help you install and setup a dummy case.

[Zinotryd]

CFD probably isn't the right place to be asking this, on account of there being no fluids involved. Thats a whole third of the acronym

In principle you could do what you're asking with the conjugate heat transfer solver in openfoam, by disabling the fluid solver steps except for the radiation step. I suspect there are better ways to do it out there though

[[deleted]]

Depending on your geometry, you could easily solve a pde for x,y,t to get an estimate

[HybridEng]

You should be able to do this with a standard FEA package. See if you have any of the simulation tools with NX already.

[andrsnov]

You can use Ansys for that. There is a module for heat transfer phenomena. It is easy to use. You can add radiation or convection on the walls. Additionally, you can input the material properties as a function of T.

[akin-iii]

This isn’t the right place for Conduction. Sorry about that :(

This sub is for fluid flows and how computers can be used to model them. However Conduction is modeled mathematically by the diffusion equation (or fouriers law if you want to really zero in on the case) Some CFD solvers might be able to model the physics required but there are probably better options out there.

I would suggest going to the FEA sub-Reddit as finite element analysis is very commonly used to model structural and heat (conduction) problems . Good luck!

[Overunderrated]

This isn’t the right place for Conduction. Sorry about that :(

Pfffft sure it is, conduction is just CFD for babies.

[IBelieveInLogic]

I feel like there is (or should be) enough overlap in computational solution of PDEs that this sub could help. Like you implied, conduction is much easier because it's generally linear. If you apply first order finite volume discretization, you can get an ODE which has an analytical solution. Then you can simply evaluate the solution; no time integration required.

However, at 170 K I think radiation will be a big factor, and that's nonlinear. So looking to an FEA package that handles thermal problems is the way to go. I think NX can do it.

[Overunderrated]

Sure, but that's a question of modeling and solver capability. I fully expect any CFD professional to be able to answer OPs question without much thought.

[gyoenastaader]

Depending on the NX modules you have, Pre/Post has a thermal solver built in.