Conjugate Heat Transfer Simulations

Nicolas Huc David Kan

Product Manager Vice President
Heat Transfer of Sales

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COMSOL Desktop, and LiveLink are trademarks of COMSOL AB. Other product or brand names are trademarks or registered
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The Multiphysics Approach
All Inclusive. Structured. In Control.
EXAMPLES
Heat losses in a Vacuum flask

Temperature Velocity
Turbulent heat exchanger
air

water

Temperature and flow field

Electronics cooling

P = 1.0 W

Temperature
Conjugate heat transfer and thermal expansion

Temperature and displacement

PHYSICAL EFFECTS
Heat transfer in solids
Hot temperature (white)
• Conduction: transfer of
heat through materials

• Materials are
characterized by their
thermal conductivity,
noted k

Cold temperature (red)

Heat transfer in solids
Convective cooling

• Heat source/sink: power

source due other
phenomena (chemical
reactions, electric
current, …)
Heat
source
• Heat flux: heat transfer
at the boundaries due
to environment (fluid,
radiation, …)
Heat transfer in fluids

In non-isothermal flows the velocity and the temperature fields

influence each other

Convection

Velocity Temperature

Fluid
Properties

Temperature Velocity
Conjugate heat transfer – laminar case

Conjugate heat transfer : heat transfer between solids and fluids

Hot temperature
in the chip package

Temperature
gradient in the
fluid domain

Low temperature
in air stream
Conjugate heat transfer – turbulent case
Sharp temperature change close to the fluid/solid interface
Turbulence increases apparent thermal conductivity of the fluid
Hot temperature

Sharp temperature
gradient at the
fluid/solid interface

 Specialized interfaces are needed Low temperature

to capture temperature and velocity fields in air stream
Heat sources

• Conversion of energy into

heat
• Example of multiphysics
sources
– Viscous heating
– Pressure work
– Electromagnetic losses (Joule,
induction and microwave
heating)
– Chemical reactions
Effect of heat on other physics

• Effect on material properties

• Density change
– Compressible flow
– Thermal expansion

• Phase change, damage

Q & A at the end of the webinar

Questions are welcome !

COMSOL INTERFACES
Conjugate Heat Transfer Capabilities

• Conjugate Heat Transfer

– Predefined coupling between solid
and fluid domains

• Heat Transfer in Porous Media

– Porous media flow coupled to heat
transfer in the solid matrix and pore
fluid

The Physics Interfaces with flow and heat transfer

Heat transfer in solid capabilities

• Conduction
• Convective cooling
• Highly conductive layer
• Thin thermal resistive Composite thin thermal resistive layer
• Radiation (Surface to surface
and participating media)

Light bulb
Heat transfer in fluid capabilities

• Heat transfer in fluids

– Compressible fluid
– Viscous heating
– Pressure work
• Laminar and turbulent flows
• Coupling to temperature in Temperature and velocity for a turbulent
compressible flow in a transonic diffuser
solids with and without
boundary layer approximations
• Numerical stabilization
High-Performance Computing Support
Multi-Core Parallel Computing

Cluster Parallel Computing

– Parametric Sweep
– Distributed Single Large
Problem

Solvers:
– Direct / Iterative / Multigrid
– Fully Coupled / Segregated
DEMO
Heat sink model

• A 1W chip generates heat

which is dissipated by the heat
sink

• Conductive heat in the solid

Air
part (aluminum) flow

• Convective cooling due to the

air flow
Demo – improved default mesh

Default mesh now automatically defines boundary mesh layers !

 Automatically enhanced resolution of the sharp gradients

close to the wall
Demo – going further

• Improvement of the heat source description

Surface temperature Volumic heat source

 Enables to model the interface between the chip package and

heat sink
Demo – going further

• Using thermal grease at the interface decrease the maximum

temperature by more than 10% !

Interface between 2 solids

 COMSOL Multiphysics enable to modify a model easily and
the test hypothesis rapidly
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