Finding heat flux (or average temperature) of surface

[Anonymous]

I'm running simple simulations of conduction/convection, but the structure will have edge effects, and so I'm wondering if:

1.)  There is the ability to find the total heat flow through a rectangular surface? 

2.)  If not, is there the ability to provide an average temperature across the area of that surface?

3.)  Or can I export point-by-point data (position, temperature) to calculate it myself  (cough matlab cough)?

(1.) is preferred, of course, but any will work since I have estimated h values etc and it's a simplified situation.

Thanks!

[shigeaki.k]

Hello @Anonymous,

1.)  There is the ability to find the total heat flow through a rectangular surface? 

You can use the surface probe or point probe to find the result at a point but the total flow for an area is not available at the moment.

2.)  If not, is there the ability to provide an average temperature across the area of that surface?

Not at the moment. You could try using the probe on all the node points on the surface but I think that could in impractical.

3.)  Or can I export point-by-point data (position, temperature) to calculate it myself  (cough matlab cough)?

Not at the moment, see the forum discussion here. 

With regards to some of the above capabilities, it may be good to submit a request for them to the Product Team through the IdeaStation here. 

Regards,

Shigeaki K.

[henderh]

Hi Thinkerer,

I think this is an important enhancement to add, so it's logged in our system now as ID 46276 to address in a future update.  It should be relatively easy since we have a framework in-place for our Reactions command in a stress analysis.

By the way, I noticed you're a professor at UIUC.  That's my alma mater (class of 1998)!  My favorite professors are Dr Jacobi (heat and mass transfer) and Professor Newell (design of thermal systems).

We appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

Best regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me - if the result is calculating a range and calculating deviation to get coloration, it's likely that getting an average value from the field will be pretty simple ; I was thinking of simply backing it out with an RGB image, converting to CSV RGB values and getting the average using Matlab, but that's a big workaround.

Jacobi is now head of the Mech E department (proving that no good deed goes unpunished) and Ty Newell is now retired - I really enjoyed my interactions with him as well. Sadly I'm from the uncool end of campus (Ag Engineering/Food Science) so I'm one of the few here who actually use any of this and I'm trying to get it into more widespread use since it gets easier every year (my PhD dissertation included about 350 pages of code working on large deformation viscoelastic problems. I'm so glad I don't have to do that any more....)

Looking forward to 360 as it develops - it's certainly popular with the students, and the problem is the usual ones - the faculty haven't touched anything like it in years.

Scott

[Anonymous]

I figured I would chime in as well - this is a critical feature for doing most process heat transfer problems, as without it, it is impossible to calculate heat balance.

[henderh]

Thank you for posting a reply @Anonymous with your strong comment.  It helped to bump up the visibility & priority.

[r.moss]

This is an essential feature, otherwise you have a "pretty picture" but no numerical answer to your problem.

[paul.caicedo]

Hello henderh, 

I see that this problem was mentioned almost 2 years ago. Could you please provide a date when the update will consider this?

Thanks

[xglassman]

would also love to know where this is in the development process. It would be very helpful to get an average for the surface instead of just point by point values and a pretty picture.

[Tethys_Giacomo]

It is 2024 now and the function to have average is not available. Nor the opportunity to export data to excel in order to do it with other tools.

Pretty annoying I have to say. In these conditions, such a software simulation should be free.

[Antony_White]

I cant believe I just spent £250 on the minimum amount of credits I can purchase, to run a thermal simulation, which for all intents and purposes is just a pretty image.

I need to measure the Heat Flux on surfaces, and the mean temperature of various bodies, but the only way i have of doing this is manually crating 1,000's of probes across multiple simulations, manually keying them all into excel and then manually calculating the values based on the heat transfer methods i set within the model.

What a waste of time and money.  I agree with giacomo above, its useless in this state and should be free, I should not have had to waste money to discover that this is a pretty picture generator and not an FEA tool.

Edit:

Okay, whats worse, the RGB scale is not applied to the model in the same way it is to the scale, it seems that the minimum value for any of R, G or B is 50 on the model, while it is 0 on the scale.  Again, extracting data that should be right there on a bodies properties form is now a 10 hour process per body.  Ridiculous doesn't begin to describe it, it will be more cost effective to start over in a different piece of software than continue in Fusion. The paywall for this picture generator is a joke.