CHT simulation of a heat sink. Image courtesy of SimScale.
The CHT solver simulates the thermal energy transfer between a solid and a fluid. Typical applications for the solver include designing heat exchangers, heaters, coolers, electronic components and other heat sources or sinks.
Traditionally, SimScale users were relegated to using convective head transfer of a single fluid domain or conductive heat transfer between solids. However, if they needed to simulate more fluid domains or assess the convection between a solid and liquid, they were out of luck. The best they could do was assume a convective coefficient as a boundary condition.
Using the new CHT technology, however, SimScale users can now define the interface between multiple domains. The solver then assess the heat transfer through the interfaces and between these domains.
The solver will not limit the amount of domains being assessed. As long as the properties of each interface are clearly defined, the system doesn’t care how many of them there are. As a result, the solver enables a number of solid-solid, fluid-fluid, and solid-fluid design setups to be assessed.
SimScale reports that this update is one of the most requested features they have had from their 60,000 users. Many of these users are members of SimScale’s Community plan, which gives them the ability to use the software for free as long as the simulations they perform are made available to the public.
If an engineer hopes to keep their IP secret, however, they will have to pay a premium to SimScale. Like many other browser-based simulation tools that are on the cloud and targeting small businesses, this premium isn’t too high. Keeping your projects under-wraps will cost around €170 (USD$190).
This freemium licensing makes SimScale an easy program to jump into. All of the software training and testing can be done before the engineer starts paying or using the platform in earnest. This also makes the software an effective tool for teaching simulation to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) students.
To learn more about freemium CAE read SimScale Brings the Price of Computer-Aided Engineering Down to Zero.