Thermal contact conductance

Heather777

I am able to use the thermal conductance contact model w/ the CCX solver so far so good, provided hex elements are used. The interface contact constraints appear to be refined when the component meshes are refined. I now need to extend analysis from rectangular components to curved components. Haven't found approach that works with tet elements. Suggestions?

Victor

Curved tet meshes with contact are pretty nasty. Is it causing irregular patchy temperatures on the contact surface?

Heather777

Thanks for the quick reply! I haven't tried the curved geometry yet. I did a simple test problem with two rectangular components (two cubes, hex8) with a flat contact interface and essentially 1D heat flux through contact. This is fine, and if the hex8 elements are refined the contact interface subdivision is handled automatically. Named surface selections and loads perform as expected. However, if I mesh components with tets the named surfaces and loads have 0 faces. So 1) I'm not clear on what Mecway (V28) can do under this situation, and 2) what would you recommend as the best approach for handling curved surfaces? The details will be a thin curved geometry, with a segment of the geometry covered with a conforming heat sink. The interface would be between the heat sink block and the curved surface. thank you

Victor

If you're meshing a STEP file, define the named selections and boundary conditions on surfaces selected from the geometry view and they'll be retained through re-meshing.

To do this with existing loads, select the surface(s) in the geometry view, then right click on the load -> Edit and you should see an option in the dropdown for <1 geometry surface>.

Or create new loads that way by right clicking on the surface in the geometry view.

If you're using Mesh tools -> Automesh 3D then that does lose boundary conditions and it's not recommended compared to a STEP file.

If I'm still misunderstanding, perhaps you could post a .liml file or screenshot.

I think contact as you're doing it is probably the best approach. An alternative is to model the interface as a layer of solid elements. Maybe formed using Mesh tools -> Extrude to avoid contact but it might get complicated depending on your geometry.