Chapter 61: Steady State Heat Transfer due to Natural Convection between Two Noncontacting Bodies located in

Nearby Vicinity

Steady State Heat Transfer

due to Natural Convection
61 between Two Noncontacting
Bodies located in Nearby
Vicinity


Summary 1168

Introduction 1169

Requested Solution 1170
 FEM Solutions 1170

Results 1173

Input File(s) 1176
 Video 1176
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CHAPTER 61

Summary
Title Chapter 61: Steady State Heat Transfer due to Natural Convection between Two
Noncontacting Bodies located in Nearby Vicinity
Contact Features • 3-D Shell – Solid Contact
• The two bodies are located at some distance from each other and do not come in contact
Geometry 3-D Shell elements (units: m)
Quarter Cylinder:
Diameter 10m
Length 10m 5m

Shell thickness 0.1m 10m

2m

3-D Solid elements (units: m) 3m

2m

Solid Cuboid:
Length 5m 5m

Breadth 3m
3m
Thickness 2m
Radius = 5m

Material Properties Quarter Cylinder:

Thermal Conductivity: 20 W/m-oC
Solid – Cuboid:
Thermal Conductivity: 10 W/m-oC
Analysis Type Steady State Heat Transfer – Natural Convection
Isotropic materials (with temperature independent properties)
Boundary • Heat Flux
Condition • Thermal Contact
• Natural Convection with Ambient Temperature
Element Type 3-D Shell
CQUAD4
Solid
CHEXA
Contact Data • The two bodies are separated by a minimum distance of 1.4m and maximum distance of 5m.
• Near contact option is enabled using a distance of 5m in BCTABLE entry.
FE Results • Temperature Plot
• Heat Flux Plot
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Steady State Heat Transfer due to Natural Convection between Two Noncontacting Bodies

Introduction
A cuboid (5X3X2m) and a quarter cylinder (with a 10m diameter and 10m height) are placed as shown in Figures 61-1
and 61-2. Quarter cylinder (often referred as the shell in this document) is 0.1m thick. One face of the cuboid,
measuring 5X2m and away from quarter cylinder, is subjected to a heat flux of 100 W/m2. All the remaining faces of
the quarter cylinder and cuboid are exposed to atmosphere. The simulation demonstrates various capabilities available
in the MD Nastran SOL 400. This exercise demonstrates heat transfer simulation between two noncontacting
deformable bodies due to natural convection. Automated contact algorithms have been utilized to simulate the heat
transfer between the two.

Figure 61-1 FE Model of Two Bodies Participating in Heat Transfer

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CHAPTER 61

5m
10m

2m

3m
2m

5m

3m

Radius = 5m

Figure 61-2 Schematic for the Two Bodies Participating in Heat Transfer

Requested Solution
Steady state temperature and heat flux plots are of interest to us. The availability of the nonlinear property extension
entry for shell and solid elements, allows the user to override standard Nastran heat elements. One can run this
simulation using standard Nastran elements. For this, the ANAL entry is set to IH which refers to the implicit heat
analyses elements. The solution presented includes:
• Temperature plots
• Heat Flux Plots

FEM Solutions
The contact, material/geometry, convergence, and other parameters used for the natural convection between the two
noncontacting deformable bodies are as follows:

Contact Parameters
The two noncontacting deformable bodies participating in the heat transfer are shown in Figure 61-2. The first body
in red, a deformable solid cube, receives heat directly from a heat source on one of its surface, measuring 5m X 2m
and away from the shell. The second body in green, a quarter cylinder, is the only other body participating in the
simulation. Due to conduction, remaining surfaces of the solid gets heated. The heat is then transfer from solid to shell
 CHAPTER 61 1171
Steady State Heat Transfer due to Natural Convection between Two Noncontacting Bodies

through thermal contact with h equals to 10 W/m2°C. The heat sink is on the outer side of the shell. The heat from this
surface is convected to ambient air at 25oC with h equals to 0.1 W/m2-oC.
$ Contact Body: deform_solid
BCBODY 1 3D DEFORM 2 0

BSURF 2 461 462 463 464 465 466 467+

+ 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475+
+ 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659+
+ 660
$ Contact Body: Deform_chexa

BCBODY 2 3D DEFORM 3 0

BSURF 3 101 102 103 104 105 106 107+

+ 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115+
+ 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459+
+ 460
BCBODY with user ID 1 is defined as a three dimensional deformable body associated with BSURF ID 2. BCBODY
with ID 2 represents three dimensional deformable quarter cylinder and is associated with BSURF ID 3.
$ Contact Table: BCTABLE_1
BCTABLE 1 1 +
$ Pair: Deform_chexa / deform_solid
+ SLAVE 2 +
+ 5. +
+ FBSH +
+ HHHB 10. +
+ MASTERS 1
BCTABLE with ID 1 is used in conjunction with the BCONTACT with ID 1 case control option to define the behavior
of two bodies during thermal interaction. A set of contact parameter is defined in the table above. The heat transfer
coefficient is defined as 10 W/m2. The distance below which near thermal contact behavior occurs is set to 5m. This
distance is referred by DQNEAR on BCTABLE.

Material/Geometry Parameters
For the purpose of simulation, two isotropic materials with constant thermal conductivity represented by the MAT4
entry are defined. Thermal conductivity for solid is set to 10 W/m-oC (represented by MAT4 ID 1) and 20 W/m-oC for
shell.
MAT4 1 10.
MAT4 2 20.
The quarter cylinder is 0.1m thick and is represented by PSHELL. Cuboids measuring 5m in length, 3m in breadth,
and 2m in height is represented by PSOLID. Additional nonlinear properties for PSHELL and PSOLID are specified by
PSHLN1 and PSLDN1, respectively. IH, which refers to ANAL value on PSHLN1 and PSLDN1 cards, specifies implicit
heat transfer elements.
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PSHELL 2 2 0.1
PSHLN1 2 2 IH
PSOLID 1 1
PSLDN1 1 1 IH +
Solid is meshed using CHEXA elements and CQUAD4 elements are used to mesh Shell.
CQUAD4 461 2 1 2 688 687
CQUAD4 660 2 874 875 126 125
…
CHEXA 101 1 127 128 135 134 204 205+
+ 212 211
CHEXA 460 1 580 581 588 587 657 658+
+ 665 664
…

Convergence Parameters
NLSTEP with ID 1 specifies the convergence criteria, step size control between coupled loops, and step/iteration
control.
NLSTEP 1 1. +
+ FIXED 2 2 +
+ HEAT PW AUTO
In our case, most of the values have been set to default. Total time for the load case is set to 1. Since our problem
involves single physics, ‘Fixed’ load time stepping scheme is sufficient. Although the default number of increments
is 50 but in a steady state heat transfer simulation we are only interested in the last step, thus an increment of 2 is
sufficient.

HEAT specifies the parameters for heat transfer analysis. PW refers to convergence criteria and is used as default for
non contact problems. The P in PW refers to error tolerance in heat flux criteria and the W refers to error tolerance
work criteria. 0.01 is set as the error tolerance for both heat flux and work. Stiffness updates are enabled through
AUTO option.

Case Control Parameters

Case control entries to conduct this analysis are mentioned below:
$# Case Control Section
TEMPERATURE(INITIAL) = 3321
SUBCASE 1
$ Subcase name : subcase_1
$LBCSET SUBCASE1 lbcset_1
TITLE=subcase_1
SUBTITLE=subcase_1
LABEL=subcase_1
THERMAL(SORT1,PRINT)=ALL
FLUX(SORT1,PRINT)=ALL
BCONTACT = 1
 CHAPTER 61 1173
Steady State Heat Transfer due to Natural Convection between Two Noncontacting Bodies

ANALYSIS = HSTAT
SPC = 3323
LOAD = 3324
NLSTEP = 1
SUBCASE 1 indicates the case being considered. BCONTACT = 1 is used to indicate the contact parameters for
SUBCASE 1. NLSTEP = 1 is used to flag the nonlinear procedure for SUBCASE 1. Temperature and heat flux are the
two standard output that have been requested. TEMPERATURE (INITIAL) specified initial temperature.

Results
Figure 61-3 shows the temperature plot. The highest temperature is recorded on a vertex which is farthest from the
shell and the minimum temperature is recorded on a node lying on the shell and is at a farthest distance from the solid.
The temperature is unlikely to change even if we change the DQNEAR value to 3m, as the contact set will remain
unchanged. Any further reduction will lead to increase in maximum temperature and decrease in minimum
temperature. Since the minimum distance between the two bodies is approximately 1.4, hence the solution won’t
converge if the DQNEAR values are set below the minimum distance. Figure 61-4 shows the heat flux plot. Table 61-1
confirms these findings.

Figure 61-3 Temperature Plot

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Figure 61-4 Heat Flux Plot

Table 61-1 Variation of Minimum and Maximum Values of Temperature and Heat Flux with
DQNEAR Values
Maximum Minimum Maximum Heat Minimum Heat
DQNEAR Temperature Temperature Flux Magnitude Flux Magnitude
S. No. Value (m) Value (oC) Value (oC) (W/m2) (W/m2)
1 5 209.1 106.0 495.3 10.7
2 4 209.1 106.0 495.3 10.7
3 3 209.1 106.0 495.3 10.7
4 2 255.9 96.90 682.4 14.9
5 1 N/A N/A N/A N/A

The users are encouraged to try out the simulation with different values of DQNEAR.
In addition, these entire scenarios can be simulated in a single run by using multiple subcases concept in SOL 400. By
definition, each subcase is completely independent of other subcase. Thus, we can have multiple BCTABLE in a single
run, and each subcase will then point to the specific BCTABLE.
SOL 400
CEND
ECHO = NONE
$# Case Control Section
TEMPERATURE(INITIAL) = 3321
SUBCASE 1
$ Subcase name : NewLoadcase
 CHAPTER 61 1175
Steady State Heat Transfer due to Natural Convection between Two Noncontacting Bodies

$LBCSET SUBCASE1
TITLE=NewLoadcase
THERMAL(SORT1,PRINT)=ALL
BCONTACT = 1
ANALYSIS = HSTAT
SPC = 3323
LOAD = 3324
NLSTEP=1
SUBCASE 4
$ Subcase name : NewLoadcase
$LBCSET SUBCASE1
TITLE=NewLoadcase
THERMAL(SORT1,PRINT)=ALL
BCONTACT = 4
ANALYSIS = HSTAT
SPC = 3323
LOAD = 3324
NLSTEP = 2
BEGIN BULK
NLSTEP,1,1.0
,FIXED,2,2
,HEAT,PW,1.0E-2,1.0E-2,1.0E-2,AUTO
NLSTEP,2,1.0
,FIXED,2,2
,HEAT,PW,1.0E-2,1.0E-2,1.0E-2,AUTO
$ Contact Table: BCTABLE_1
BCTABLE 1 1 +
$ Pair: Deform_chexa / deform_solid
+ SLAVE 2 +
+ 5. +
+ FBSH +
+ HHHB 10. +
+ MASTERS 1
BCTABLE 4 1 +
$ Pair: Deform_chexa / deform_solid
+ SLAVE 2 +
+ 2.0 +
+ FBSH +
+ HHHB 10. +
+ MASTERS 1

F06 Output
A number of case control options such as TEMPERATRE (INITIAL), BCONTACT, NLSTEP, etc have been used. (See
nug_61.bdf).
Temperature and heat flux values are requested for all computed load increment. This output is set by default (=0) in
the NLSTEP entry. If a positive integer is used to refer to INTOUT on the NLSTEP entry, it will allow output at equally
spaced intervals. In such cases, even the time steps will be temporarily adjusted to reach these points in time.

THERMAL(SORT1,PRINT)=ALL and FLUX(SORT1,PRINT)=ALL produces temperature and heat flux output for all
the nodes.
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CHAPTER 61

Input File(s)
Files Description
nug_61.bdf MD Nastran input for simulating heat transfer between two non contacting
bodies through Natural Convection.

Video
Click on the image or caption below to view a streaming video of this problem; it lasts approximately four minutes
and explains how the steps are performed.

Figure 61-5 Video of the Above Steps