Heat transfer is one of the most common physical phenomena. Thermal analysis can provide useful information for the design of an engineering product:
- Temperature distributions.
- Heat flux paths – important information in evaluating insulations.
- As a boundary condition for the analysis of thermal stress.
Thermal analyses provide very useful information in the following applications:
- Chemical plants
- Burners and combustors.
- Heat exchangers.
- Undersea insulation systems.
Thermal analyses have become increasingly important as designers push for higher performance machines. This means that a good understanding of temperature distribution and thermal loads can often be vital. An incorrect constraint in a system working under elevated temperature can lead to unexpected high thermal stress which may lead to failure.
The accuracy of thermal analyses is highly dependent on correct boundary conditions being defined. Engineers in TriVista Engineering have experience in calculating thermal boundary condition using classical 1D calculation or alternately using CFD to find out more accurate boundary conditions.
Thermal analysis can be performed using FEA or CFD. FEA method is often preferred when evaluating thermal stress is the main purpose of the analysis or the boundary conditions are well defined. CFD is a better method in estimating flow boundary conditions (heat transfer coefficient and fluid temperature) when the flow or structure geometry is complex. Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) can be used for flow simulation first to give accurate thermal boundary condition then followed with stress analysis. FSI will be more demanding on computing resources.
The thermal analysis capabilities available from TriVista are comprehensive. As long-term users of both FEA and CFD we are able to apply both types of analysis simultaneously to evaluate complex thermo-fluid systems and obtain the following advantages:
- Reduce development time and costs
- Avoid expensive design changes
- Eliminate problems due to thermally induced stress and/or deformation using coupled field analysis. Incompatible thermal growth should be avoided at the design stage.
- Identify correct material choices
- Optimisation of cooling and insulation
Steady state thermal analysis can be used to determine the temperature distributions in an object with thermal loads that do not vary with time. The heat transfer in steady state thermal analysis includes conduction, convection and radiation. Most thermal analyses are steady state thermal analyses.
Transient thermal analysis is time dependent. Transient Thermal analysis can be used to evaluate the cooling process of a system or a thermal induced stress due to a sudden temperature change.
TriVista provide FEA consulting services and has a lot of experience in thermal analysis. If you would like to know more please feel free to call or email (contact details below). Our experienced engineers will be happy to help you. Alternatively, you may prefer to use our simple enquiry form.