Hello All,
I am working on project for a concentrated solar power application. I am looking for a method of specifying a heat flux distribution, or profile, across a single surface. Meaning, the magnitude of the heat flux varies (non-linearly) with position at the heat input surface. Is this possible to do with Autodesk Simulation CFD?
Thanks,
DP
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by apolo_vanderberg. Go to Solution.
No method of specifying a flux gradient
The only method would be to manually split the surface in to smaller surfaces and then to assign respective Fluxes to each subset to create the gradient
This is what I feared. For a Gaussian distribution like function, the slope can be very steep near the peak and therefore can be quite painful to discretize. I have a put in a suggestion to the idea forum to include a way to define a vertex and a function that would define the heat flux as a function of position, possibly with definite bounds.
An interesting application. Off the cuff suggestion - If your problem is not transient, perhaps modeling a thin layer of highly conductive material between your parts and where you apply the heat flux will smooth out the distribution - this will allow you to use fewer regions and still achive a more continuous near-gaussian profile, instead of a stepwise one.
While the approach of breaking up the surface into discrete regions is a valid approach, it can be a painful approach depending on the situation. Please note that I have accepted this as a solution but I have also put in a request in the idea forum to incorporate an option to define a spatial function. Thanks.