Hi, I am Hamid and I am doing Thermal Management Simulation for Team CraneAero- A Cranfield University team participating in GoAero competition, which is about developing an autonomous flying rescue vehicle.
To increase the fidelity of the simulation, its imperative to capture the transient voltage response which makes the internal heat generation vary with respect to time and space. One way of achieving it, is by coupling a RCR model with CHT. It requires parameter tables to be developed with a RCR Circuit analysis in MATLAB or similar tool, and then using those tables as an initial condition for CFD analysis. I have done this kind of simulation in StarCCM+, I want to know if SimScale can support such type of multi-physics simulation.
I am unfamiliar with this use case but here are some points that might be helpful. Feel free to point me in the right direction in case I didn’t understand your question properly.
First of all, table inputs are certainly possible within SimScale. If you have your input readily generated from MATLAB, you can also import it as a CSV. Check this article out:
This is commonly also done in what is called a One-Way FSI where we, for example, export results from a CFD simulation and use them as boundary conditions for an FEA simulation.
Other than that, the following setup options in SimScale might be what you are looking for:
For your requirement of capturing internal heat generation that varies with time and space due to transient voltage, we have a couple of approaches:
Joule Heating: SimScale has a Joule Heating feature that calculates the heat generated by an electric current. This will give you the spatially varying heat source you need. However, a current limitation is that the electrical boundary conditions (voltage or current) can only be defined as steady-state values, not as a function of time.
Time-Dependent Power Source: You can define a Power Source within a CHT simulation. This allows you to assign a heat generation rate to specific parts or volumes. This power can be defined as a function of time using a table, which aligns with your workflow of using pre-calculated data from MATLAB or a similar tool.
