COMSOL Blog

Modeling Heat Transfer in Thin Layers via Layered

Material Technology
by Claire Bost

May 15, 2020

A comprehensive set of functionality is available with the COMSOL Multiphysics® software to compute heat
transfer in thin layers. A technical description of how this provides accurate results with minor computational
effort could be the purpose of a full blog post and is not detailed here. Instead, we focus on the questions
related to the Layered Material technology: What does it do? How does your simulation benefit from it?

Editor’s note: This blog post was originally published in 2019. It has since been updated to include new
functionality available with the Heat Transfer Module as of version 5.5.

Modeling Heat Transfer in Thin Layers

COMSOL Multiphysics includes functionality that accounts for specific thermal properties in thin layers of a
geometry and solves for heat transfer through layers without representing them explicitly in the geometry.
Electric currents and mechanical stress can be defined in the layers for various fields of applications, such as
electronic components and laminated composite shells exposed to thermal stress.

The image below shows the temperature distribution in a steel column subjected to a temperature gradient.
A thin ceramic part made of two different layers, located at half-height of the column, acts as a thermal
barrier due to its low thermal conductivity producing a jump in temperature across the ceramic part. The
ceramic layer is represented as a surface in the geometry rather than two thin volumes to alleviate the
constraint on the mesh size that would come with the high aspect ratio between the different parts of the
geometry. This high aspect ratio would make the visualization in this part very difficult. Although the ceramic
part is not represented explicitly in the geometry, you can solve the temperature distribution through the
layer and magnify it for better postprocessing, as shown in the figure below.

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Temperature distribution in a steel column with a ceramic layer, computed with the Heat Transfer in Solids
interface and the Thin Layer node. The thickness of the ceramic layer is enlarged 20 times for visualization.

See the Composite Thermal Barrier tutorial model (/model/composite-thermal-barrier-13723) in the

Application Gallery for more details about this model.

What Does Layered Material Technology Bring to Heat Transfer

Modeling?
The Layered Material technology is designed to improve your modeling experience in two ways:

1. Grouping the definition of the layered shell’s properties in a central location in the model tree to make
them accessible by the different physics interfaces involved. This is meant to clarify the model
definition by separating the medium definition from the physics definition as well as to reduce the
modeling work, since the medium properties are set once for all of the physics.
2. Adding flexibility by allowing, for example, any number of layers or different positions and orientations
for the layers.

Let’s look at the design of the features for computing heat transfer in layered shells while taking advantage of
the Layered Material technology. We consider an example geometry containing two layered shells:

1. The first layered shell, defined on boundary 1, is composed of three layers made of material 1 (top and
bottom) and material 2 (middle)
2. The second layered shell, defined on boundary 2, is composed of a single layer made of material 3
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Geometry containing the layered shells and material composition of the layered shells applied on boundaries 1 and
2.

The layered shells are included in the geometry as surfaces, but the physics equations can be solved on the
reconstructed volume (shown in red in the figure below) with degrees of freedom (DOFs) added in the
reconstructed volume.

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When modeling heat transfer in this geometry, we want to specify the number of layers as well as the
thickness and material of each layer. On top of these properties, it may be handy to have access to advanced
parameters, such as the number of through-thickness mesh elements, orientation and position of the layered
material on the boundary, and specific material properties at the interfaces of the layers.

All properties of layered shells, except the material, are defined by a Layered Material node. It includes the
composition of the layered shell, along with the geometry and discretization properties of each layer. The
physics node (Thin Layer for this example) simply points to the Layered Material node (middle part of the
figure below). Then, the Layered Material node points to material nodes for the definition of the material
properties (bottom part of the figure below).

Model nodes involved in the definition of a layered shell.

Therefore, you can apply a single-physics model — let’s say, to model heat conduction — on several layered
shells made of various numbers and types of layers. The specificity of the layered shells is handled by the
Layered Material nodes. The modeling process is clarified by splitting the definition of the medium properties
and physical model into two distinct locations in the model tree, as shown in the screenshot below:

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Screenshot of the model tree and the Solid node Settings window.

Several layered material nodes are available:

Single Layer Material

Layered Material Link
Layered Material Stack
Layered Material

Read the blog post on analyzing wind turbine blades (/blogs/analyzing-wind-turbine-blades-with-

the-composite-materials-module/) to see how these nodes can be combined to model a wind turbine
composite blade.

Now that we’ve presented the functionality that comes with the Layered Material technology, two questions
arise:

1. How do we make use of this functionality for heat transfer?

2. How does it benefit the simulation process?

Using the Layered Material Functionality in COMSOL

Multiphysics®
In all versions of the Heat Transfer interface, the Thin Layer, Thin Film, and Fracture nodes can be used on
boundaries to model layered shells made of solid, fluid, and porous materials (with any number of layers)
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consider the Heat Transfer in Shells interface, which is applied on the example geometry mentioned in the
previous section.
First, the Heat Transfer in Shells interface contains a Shell Properties section where the Shell type, Layered shell
or Nonlayered shell, can be selected. The Nonlayered shell option switches to a simplified machinery that
supports the simplest single layer shell configurations only. This lightweight option is of interest for the
simplest physics and leads to a more responsible UI when the number of geometrical entities is very large.
However, it does not provide the advanced pre- and postprocessing tools nor the multiphysics coupling
capabilities available with the Layered shell option on which this post focuses. In the following part of this
text, we will assume that the default Layered shell option is selected.

Screenshot showing the default Layered shell option selected in the Shell Properties section.

Because the layered shell properties are defined in the material nodes, the boundaries selected in the Heat
Transfer in Shells node require a layered material defined on them. The Restrict to layered boundaries check
box, located in the Boundary Selection section of the Heat Transfer in Shells interface, controls how the UI
behaves depending on if layered materials are defined or not. When it is deselected (default option), it is
possible to select any boundary. If no material — which is your configuration when you start to build the
model — or a classical (nonlayered) material is defined on some of the selected boundaries, a red cross in the
Materials node indicates that additional information is required.

So, with the Restrict to layered boundaries check box deselected, it is possible to go back and forth between
the physics and the material definition, provided that everything is properly defined before the model is
solved. Conversely, when the Restrict to layered boundaries check box is selected, only the boundaries where a
layered material is defined can be selected. This automatically filters out the boundaries that are not shells,
so the ones where it doesn’t make sense to define the Heat Transfer in Shells interface, provided the layered
material properties have been properly defined before the physics is defined. From here, we’ll assume that
the Restrict to layered boundaries check box is in its default state, deselected.

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Screenshot showing the Heat Transfer in Shells interface Settings window with default options.

Single Layer Material

At this point, it is recommended to add layered materials under the Materials node. Let’s start with the
simplest and most common configuration when modeling heat transfer, a simple shell made of a single layer.

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Screenshot showing the creation of a layered material node under the Materials node.

We add a single layer material corresponding to the shell on Boundary 2, shown in the second figure at the
beginning of this post. This node is similar to a classical material with, in addition to the classical material
content, an Orientation and Position section and three extra material properties in the Material Contents
section.

The Orientation and Position section contains the shell position and the coordinate system that gives the
orientation in case of anisotropic properties.

The three additional material properties are Thickness, Rotation, and Mesh elements, which correspond
respectively to the shell thickness; the in-plane rotation of the coordinate system — useful, for example, to
change the material orientation in a parametric study; and the number of mesh elements that defines the
through-thickness number of mesh elements for the layer discretization.

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Screenshot showing the definition of a Single Layer Material node.

It’s interesting to note that if a material from a material library is added and assigned to a boundary where a
layered material is expected, it is automatically converted into a Single Layer Material, with the Orientation and
Position section appearing, along with the Thickness, Rotation, and Mesh elements material properties.

Layered Material
Let’s add a three-layer material corresponding to the shell on Boundary 1, shown in the second figure at the
beginning of this post. Now, in the component, we add a Layered Material Link under the Material node.
Similarly, to a Single Layer Material, we find the Orientation and Position section. The layer definition is linked
to this node in the Layered Material Settings section, where it is possible to select any of the existing layered
materials or create a new one using the + button. Depending on the type of layered material, different
settings are available; see the Composite Material Module User Manual for details. In this example, we select a
Layered Material.

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Screenshot of the Layered Material Link node where the + button is used to add a layered material.

The layered material is then created under the Global Definitions node. It is possible to define an arbitrary
number of layers.

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Screenshot of the Layered Material node defining a three-layer shell.

Each layer has its own link to a classical material that provides the layer material properties. In addition, the
Rotation, Thickness, and Mesh elements are defined for each layer.

Extended Capabilities for Modeling Heat Transfer in Layered Shells

Once you’ve updated your model to use the Layered Material technology, flexibility is enhanced for several
aspects of your simulation process. You can apply heat sources and fluxes on specific subsets of layers or at
interfaces between layers (including the external interfaces), as illustrated below with the Heat Source and
Heat Source, Interface nodes.

Heat Source Heat Source, Interface

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 /td>

Screenshots of the Settings windows for the Heat Source (top left) and Heat Source, Interface nodes (top right) as
well as the corresponding Layer Cross Section Preview images generated when clicking the buttons in the upper-
right corners of the windows.

When considering thermal expansion, you can apply a rotation on each individual layer for the anisotropic
modeling of heat transfer and solid mechanics. Another benefit is that specific through-thickness meshes can
be used on layers, and you have the choice to set the temperature field as continuous or discontinuous at the
common edge between adjacent layered shells (middle of the bow in the figure below); by default, it is
continuous for thermally thin shells, otherwise it is discontinuous.

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Temperature field, discontinuous at the edge where the layered materials coincide (10x scaling on the thickness).

By using the Continuity node, the temperature continuity can be defined as needed, and it is possible to
control the offset that defines the parts in contact, as shown below.

Layer Cross Section Preview of the Continuity node, applied between the layered materials of boundaries 1 and 2
with continuity on the bottom (left) or on the midplane (right).

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The temperature field, continuous at the edge where the layered materials coincide (10x scaling on the thickness),
continuity defined on the midplane.

Several sketches to preview the layered material configuration are available for preprocessing, and specific
plots allow you to visualize the computed fields through the thickness of the layered material; on slices of it;
or on a full 3D representation (with scaling on thickness), as demonstrated above. More details about the
Slice and Through thickness plots available with the Layered Material dataset can be found in this blog post on
the Composite Materials Module (/blogs/introducing-the-composite-materials-module/).

Finally, for a greater numerical verification of the simulation results in a layered material, you can also
evaluate layerwise averages and integrals by using specific operators. See the Composite Thermal Barrier
tutorial model (/model/composite-thermal-barrier-13723) to get a demonstration of how the xdintopall
operator can be set to integrate the temperature in the thermal barrier (in all layers), and how the atonly
operator allows you to specify the evaluation context, for example, of a specific layer in the layered material.
By combining these two operators, you can make sure the average temperature obtained in each layer with
the thin layer approach is very close to those obtained when the thermal barrier is explicitly represented as a
volume in the geometry.

Improving Performance by Making Assumptions on the Heat

Transfer Pattern
Before concluding, we should review the different models available for heat transfer in layered shells (in the
Thin Layer node, for example).

Theclicking
most accurate
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material.
When the layers are considered either very good or very bad thermal conductors, two options with a lower
numerical cost are available.

By using the Thermally thin approximation option, you assume thermal equilibrium between both sides of the
layered shell. This applies well when the thermal conductivity of the layer is much higher than the
conductivity of the surrounding material. The temperature gradient through the thickness of the layer can be
neglected in comparison to the temperature gradients observable along the layer and in the surrounding
geometry. With this option, only the shell contribution to the tangential heat transfer is accounted for, and
the DOFs through the thickness of the layer are not included in the computation.

With the Thermally thick approximation option, it is the opposite configuration: because the layer is more
thermally resistive than the surrounding material, the contribution of the shell to the gradient of temperature
along the layered shell can be neglected. The heat flux across the layer is obtained by applying the thermal
resistance to the temperature difference between both sides of the layer. In the Composite Thermal Barrier
tutorial model (/model/composite-thermal-barrier-13723), this approach produces reliable temperature
predictions in terms of accuracy, when compared to the General option.

These approximations — associated to a Single Layer Material node when modeling one layer or applied to the
layered shell when using other types of layered materials — help to improve the efficiency of the
computation.

Concluding Thoughts
In this blog post, we have taken an in-depth look at the design of the thin layer functionality for heat transfer
based on the Layered Material technology. You can access an extended set of functionality with improved
preprocessing and postprocessing tools as well as flexibility in the simulation process for configurations of
complex layers.

Other physics interfaces are designed to use the Layered Material technology as well. Multiphysics coupling
nodes are available to model multiphysics processes such as thermal expansion, electromagnetic heating, and
the thermoelectric effect in layered materials. For example, see the Thermal Expansion of a Laminated
Composite Shell model (/model/thermal-expansion-of-a-laminated-composite-shell-67281) in the
Application Gallery.

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Temperature distribution and deformation (scaled 200x) of a composite laminate made of 6 layers with various fiber
orientations and subjected to narrow beam heating.

Further Reading
Read more about layered material technology on the COMSOL Blog:

Introducing the Composite Materials Module (/blogs/introducing-the-composite-materials-module/)

Analyzing Wind Turbine Blades with the Composite Materials Module (/blogs/analyzing-wind-
turbine-blades-with-the-composite-materials-module/)
Designing Heating Circuits with Multiphysics Simulation (/blogs/designing-heating-circuits-with-
multiphysics-simulation)

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 Cookies Settings
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