Need guidelines For PCB thermal simulation

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

I am new for Fusion 360 simulation portal. I need to do Thermal simulation in PCB with suitable environment. I have less experience of Fusion 360 because I used Inventor Professional 2018 for modeling. I need your help to get better understand how to do thermal simulation.

I have few questions, If I will get answers it will be good for me.

1. What Kind of basic information need to simulate PCB?
2. How can I build boundaries for thermal simulation in Fusion 360?
3. How can I read and understand Simulation result?
4. How can I verify Simulation result?
5. What Kind of solution will be help us to achieve our goal after simulation?

I am waiting for your positive answers.

Regards,

Shreyansh Patel

[John_Holtz · Accepted solution]

Hi Shreyansh. Welcome to the Fusion forum.

I do not have any practical experience with PCBs, so hopefully another reader can provide some insight specific to that. But here is what I know:

1. Fusion performs a steady state heat transfer (SSHT) analysis. So the only material property required is the thermal conductivity.
2. The loads and constraints in a SSHT model are applied to the faces of the model. They represent loads such as convection or radiation to an ambient source, or a heat load or heat generation (applied to a part, not just a surface.)
3. I am not sure that I understand the question. Are you asking what results are available, or how do you know if the results are any good? (The last qeustion takes practice, experience, and asking questions.)
4. By modeling known situations, such as presented in the Accuracy Verification Examples.
5. Can you re-phrase your question? I do not understand what information you are asking about.

[Anonymous]

Hello Sir,

Thank you for reply.

3. How can I read and understand Simulation result?

Above question is related to read result after simulation complete. 

5. What Kind of solution will be help us to achieve our goal after simulation?

As per my requirement I need to provide suitable location for any electronics components on PCB. I also maintain heat disputation during working condition of PCB in enclosure. In simulation, If I find any component indicate higher heat than its temperature limits than I need to arrange any precaution to eliminate that issue or arrange any cooling arrangement.

In fusion 360, I can do steady state simulation.  I need to use Autodesk CFD to get effective solution and heat related issues.

So can any one guide me for Autodesk CFD. 

[John_Holtz · Accepted solution]

Hi,

For 3, results are presented as a color contour plot (in both Fusion and CFD) or an XY graph of the results (CFD). From these, you can decide if the results are acceptable to the design or not.

For 5, you will use the calculated results and your engineering expertise to adjust the decide if the results are not suitable. For example, if the temperature is too high, then the component needs less heat generation, more cooling, moved to a different location, change in shape, and so on. All of those types of judgements and re-analysis are done manually by the user.

There are two advantages of Autodesk CFD that come to mind over Fusion:

1. In CFD, you can include the motion of the air to simulate the convection cooling; that is, perform a combined fluid flow and thermal analysis together. (Of course, this makes the analysis 10 to 100 times more difficult to solve, but sometimes it needs to be included in the analysis!) Without the air motion, the loads that you apply in a heat transfer analysis are based on your calculations of what the air is doing to cool the  model.
2. In CFD, you can perform a transient thermal analysis (if that is important, but I suspect a steady state analysis is sufficient for your purpose).

The best place to get help with CFD is from the CFD forum.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

[Anonymous]

Hello Sir,

Thank you once again for reply.

So, I think for basic thermal simulation I can use Fusion 360, If I require advance thermal simulation than go for CFD.

If I need any help I will contact you.

Thank you.

Regards,

Shreyansh Patel