Thermal conduction occurs when heat transfers through a solid, from the higher-temperature to lower-temperature regions. This happens spontaneously, and continues until a state of thermal equilibrium is attained. Typical examples of conduction in everyday life include the handle of a pot of boiling water getting hot, the increase in temperature of the outer wall of a copper pipe as hot water passes through it, or the spontaneous chill you experience when you consume a spoonful of ice cream.

Understanding conduction behavior can help you design safer, more dependable and better performing products. Simcenter places robust conductive heat transfer analysis capabilities at your fingertips.

Model preparation can account for up to 80 percent of the overall CAE process. This is often the result of tedious geometry clean-up and preparation. Simcenter offers sophisticated capabilities for model preparation including surface wrapping techniques for extracting fluid volumes and for boundary layer meshing.

Convection is a major heat transfer pathway that is present in a wide range of applications, processes and natural phenomena. Many products rely on a robust heat management strategy for optimal performance and durability. Optimizing convective heat transfer in these devices, either by strategic placement of components or the use of other working fluids, is a complex problem. Simcenter offers robust capabilities for addressing convection in the design of products.

The comprehensive heat transfer models in Simcenter extend to solid energy models including conduction in solid shells and exothermic solids.

Some types of thermal simulation involve a change in state of materials. Examples include freezing of water on a cold windshield, de-fogging of interior volumes, and condensation and boiling that may occur where a fluid meets a structural boundary. Simcenter provides advanced capabilities to account for phase change in thermal and fluid-thermal simulations.

Thermal loads will usually result in stresses in components that add to the stresses resulting from other types of loads such as contact, force, and pressure. Thermal stresses are caused by changes in temperature in a structure where expansion or contraction is constrained. Simcenter includes advanced capabilities for evaluating thermo-mechanical stress in structures.