Product category:
Simulation, modelling and validation software
News Release from: Comsol | Subject: Femlab Heat Transfer Model
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 29 October 2004
Multiphysics software gains
heat-transfer module
A new module for Femlab offers ready solutions for thermal management in electronics, healthcare/bioengineering, plus thermal processes across manufacturing areas from food to metals.
Heat transfer is involved in almost every kind of physical process and in fact can be the limiting factor for many of them, and the requirement for powerful heat-transfer analysis tools by engineers and scientists is virtually universal Responding to this need, Comsol has greatly expanded the base capabilities available in its Femlab mathematical modelling package, creating a dedicated Heat Transfer Module
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 28 Nov 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Mathematical modelling moves on to new peaks
Femlab 3 uses proven finite-element analysis to efficiently solve models of physical phenomena so engineers and scientists can better understand their underlying properties.
Modelling package turns to MEMS design
A new MEMS Module for the Femlab mathematical modelling package allows designers to model micro electromechanical systems with physical dimensions of microns.
It not only adds new types of heat analysis such as surface-to-surface radiation, nonisothermal flow and the bioheat equation, but also gives extra power to the general heat equation so that it's easier for users to get more realistic results from simulations.
Further, heat seldom exists as an isolated physics and arises through other interactions, and Femlab excels at letting scientists and engineers model multiple physics simultaneously, putting heat transfer in the context of real-world situations.
A final highlight is an accompanying Model Library, which consists of more than 20 ready-to-run model files.
They not only show users how to investigate various types of heat transfer in a multiphysics setting, but also provide examples that users can adapt to their own application requirements.
The Heat Transfer Module works as an addon to the core Femlab package, which itself is a sophisticated tool for modelling and simulating any physical process you can describe with partial differential equations (PDEs).
Further reading
Multiphysics viewer comes for free
A novel Multiphysics Viewer lets any researcher, scientist or engineer visualise, examine and postprocess results from models created using the multiphysics Femlab mathematical modelling package.
Multiphysics modelling upgrades to 64bit platforms
Femlab 3.1 is the latest release of Comsol's breakthrough multiphysics mathematical modelling environment.
Modelling package improves plant efficiency
Jonas Fjellstedt of Outokumpu Copper R and D used the Femlab mathematical modelling package to determine how to improve efficiency in a plant producing metal rods.
It comes with a CAD editor and high-performance state-of-the-art solvers that address extremely large problems yet quickly yield accurate results.
Working in an easy-to-use graphical interface, users choose from several ways to describe their problems in 1D, 2D and 3D.
A particular strength of the package is its PDE modelling capability, whereby it can link and solve coupled equations from arbitrary fields.
Flexible post-processing and visualisation tools round out the package's extensive capabilities.
Using the application modes in the Heat Transfer Module along with Femlab's inherent multiphysics capabilities, researchers can model a temperature field in parallel with other physics.
These modes support all fundamental mechanisms: conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer.
The latter mode is important because radiation is so prevalent, even at low temperatures; the module supports both surface-surface and surface-ambient radiation, even in three dimensions.
Finally, the module also provides special modelling techniques that handle nonisothermal flow for dealing with a fluid's density change with temperature, and for handling highly conductive thin layers, which can often be a high hurdle for other modelling packages.
Although it's possible to set up a heat-transfer or multiphysics simulation using these predefined application modes, Comsol further eases the modelling process and allows scientists to more quickly get results thanks to a Model Library provided with the module.
It consists of both a separate book and a set of more than 20 model files that users can load directly into Femlab.
These models not only explain the physical phenomena that underlie heat transfer, but also illustrate the techniques for applying this knowledge to advanced real-world problems.
Thus, this book serves as a valuable reference work in its own right, just as well suited for the classroom as for the R and D laboratory.
The predefined application modes and the Model Library enable the Heat Transfer Module to make substantial contributions to understanding the underlying phenomena in many fields of research as well as helping to improve product design and manufacturing in almost any industry.
However, the product excels at this task in three particular areas: thermal management in electronics; thermal processes and manufacturing; medical technology and bioengineering.
Thermal management in electronics: an important aspect in electronics system design is the cooling required to keep a circuit assembly within its specified operating temperature range; similarly, in the manufacturing of silicon wafers it's crucial to maintain a uniform temperature distribution to achieve high yields.
In the second case, the manufacturing process takes place at very low pressures, which means that radiation becomes the main heat transfer mechanism and surface-to-surface radiation becomes necessary for its modelling.
Heat transfer also plays a key role in the interaction between electronic devices and live tissue.
A common denominator for this application area is that the models usually involve coupled heat transfer in both solids and fluids.
Thermal processes and manufacturing: in the thermal-processing and manufacturing industries phase changes are often a critical aspect of fabrication.
These phase transformations can be relevant in everything from copper casting and welding in metallurgy, to food preparation and cooking in the food industry.
In metallurgy, the high temperatures imply that surface-to-surface-radiation has to be accounted for in the modelling process, a feature available in the new Heat Transfer Module.
A common denominator in these modelling problems is the nonlinearities that arise from phase changes.
Medical technology and bioengineering: accurately describing heat transfer in live tissue is usually done with the bioheat equation, where effective transport properties and temperature sinks and sources are available for different types of live tissue.
Using this module, scientists can investigate a wide range of problems from the development of dose planning in microwave-coagulation therapy for cancer treatment, to the design of treatment devices that interact with human tissue.
A common denominator for this class of problems is the interaction of heat-generating or -consuming devices with live tissue.
The Heat Transfer Module requires Femlab 3.1, which runs under Windows 98/2000/NT 4.0/XP as well as Linux, Solaris and HP-UX.
64bit support is available under Linux (running on the AMD64 and Itanium processors), and under Unix (for the Solaris and HP-UX operating systems).
The minimum system configuration is a Pentium processor, 256Mbyte of RAM (512Mbyte recommended) and an OpenGL-compatible graphics card.
The Heat Transfer Module lists for GBP 1995, and a single-user perpetual license for Femlab 3.1 lists for GBP 4995 including first-class support and automatic upgrades for 12 months; special academic pricing is available. Request a free brochure from Comsol ...
• Comsol: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
• Engineeringtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
