Coupled Thermal Simulations for Industrial Development

Carsten Brodbeck
Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI

Included in the CFD Methods for the Simulation of Heat Transfer Seminar Proceedings,
22 - 23 November 2017 Neuendettelsau, Germany

A​bstract

Concerning thermal processes, generally the different heat transport mechanism of convection, solid conduction and radiation are participated in varying proportions. For the simulation of such setups, there is a large number of simulation tools available, which cover these transport mechanism either completely or partially. Which software is applied in industry usually depends on the company-internal software history and type and size of the respective application. Code coupling software MpCCI is one software amongst others offering various possibilities to incorporate different simulation tools to cover the solution of complex thermal problems. For instance in the automotive industry, the software TAITherm is widely used due to its straightforward operation and fast solution procedures. In case that a more detailed convective transport on the fluid side is required, which may exceed the possibilities of TAITherm an additional CFD-software must be involved. MpCCI offers here a connection of TAITherm to several CFD tools e.g. STAR-CCM+, ANSYS Fluent, OpenFOAM, FINETM/Turbo or other in-house codes for complex thermal simulations. In addition, a coupled approach applying quasi-transient methods for transient setups, which is applied by German and international car manufacturers is depicted in this work. In the coupling software, it is payed attention to an automatic, practicable and error-detecting setup of the coupled simulation process. Beyond the automotive sector, another place of action for coupled thermal simulations, which is shown here, is the turbomachinery field. In the framework of this manuscript, the results of a Fraunhofer joint project concerning the development of a full ceramic impeller are presented. In the context of thermal stresses in microelectronic devices, the approach of mapping convective data on a structural model is demonstrated within the scope of this work. In the field of electrical devices some results of a two-way coupled circuit breaker and a transformer are also presented here.