Thermal loads

Objects such as heaters, boilers, electronic devices, and circuitry all generate heat and require thermal management to prevent injury and premature failure. Thermal simulations provide a visual representation of the temperature and airflow in and around objects, so you can optimize your design to reduce power consumption and cost, and maximize safety and the lifetime of your product.

Thermal loads are heat forces applied to model components. In addition to the three heat transfer mechanisms; conduction, convection, and radiation, there are three more loads; internal heat, heat source, and applied temperature, that can add heat to, or remove heat from your analysis. These loads apply a specific amount of thermal energy, instead of using physics, to transfer the heat.

Note: You cannot apply a temperature to an entity with other thermal loads applied (such as temperature, convection, radiation, and surface heat), because temperature loads would lock the surface temperature, causing the other loads to be negated. Similarly, you cannot apply other thermal loads to an object that already has a temperature load applied, because the temperature load would add or remove an infinite amount of energy, and the temperature would remain constant.
Load Study Type Applies to... Used to...
thermal loads icon Applied Temperature Thermal, Thermal stress Faces, edges, and vertices.

When selecting more than one input, all inputs must be the same entity type.		 Lock selected entities to a specified temperature, allowing an infinite amount of energy to be generated or removed to maintain the specified temperature.
thermal loads icon Heat Source Thermal, Thermal stress Faces, edges, and vertices.

When selecting more than one input, all inputs must be the same entity type.		 Impose a specific amount of heat, that passes through the surfaces, directly on faces, edges, or vertices.
thermal loads icon Radiation Thermal, Thermal stress Face Simulate radiative heat transfer between one or more surfaces and the surrounding environment.
thermal loads icon Convection Thermal, Thermal stress Faces Simulate heat transfer between the ambient atmosphere (liquid or gas) and one or more faces of the model.
thermal loads icon Internal Heat Thermal, Thermal stress, Electronics cooling Body Add or remove a specific amount of energy from a body.
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Parent page: Loads

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