Constant temperature heating element

Hello,

I wanted to ask about conditions in Conjugate Heat Transfer. Can I have a source of heat which will stay the same temperature during the whole simulation and just give out heat? I want to simulate a heating block on a 3D printer and how it would affect surrounding components. I know I can add power sources, but I cant limit them to stay at a certain temperature after reaching the goal temperature.

I also tried setting an initial condition, which kinda worked, but the heating block doesnt stay the same temperature, it just gives off heat and cools down. So just want to know if there is an option to keep it at the same temperature all the time.

Thank you!

Hi there!

You can add a fixed temperature value to the walls of the part, as explained in this article:

Thank you very much, that was exactly what I was looking for.

However, now that Ive added the wall condition, I cannot start a simulation because the faces have more than one assignments. One is for coupled interface and one is for Wall. How can I solve this?

Hi there!

Indeed it is not possible to assign the fixed temperature to a surface if it is part of an interface. That would create an overconstrain in the model.

My suggestion here would be to just delete the solid part modeling the heat element, and apply the fixed temperature to the surfaces of the fluid that become boundaries. You don’t really need the heating element as you already know it has the constant temperature, right?

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Yes, you are completely right, I havent really thought of that!

So basically I would create flow region as per normal, then still in CAD delete the heating block leaving an empty space and when the simulation starts automatically detecting contacts, it wont detect any and they can be selected as a wall.

Am I understand that right?

Yes, that is the idea! Please try to implement it and write back if you hit any blockers.

That worked wonderfully, thank you so much for your help!

Awesome model and results, congratulations!

Please don’t forget to also mark the post as solved.