Workshop: Headlamp Thermal Radiation

ANSYS FLUENT Heat Transfer Modeling

1 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Introduction

• This tutorial demonstrates how to model natural convection heat transfer and
radiation in an automotive headlamp
• This tutorial demonstrates how to perform the following tasks:
− Use the Discrete Ordinates radiation model
− Define solid cell zones consisting of semi-transparent media, that participate in the radiation
calculation
− Use a solution process in which certain equations are deactivated at different stages of the
solution to achieve faster convergence
− Postprocess temperatures and radiation patterns on the lamp surface

2 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Prerequisites
• This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the ANSYS FLUENT interface and
that you have a good understanding of basic setup and solution procedures.
• Note that some steps will not be shown explicitly.

3 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Problem Description: Headlamp

Reflector housing

Filament (80 W)

Due to the use of symmetry boundaries, the source applied in

the calculation will be 40 W.

Bulb (with coating) Natural convection will be calculated in the air inside the bulb,
inside the reflector cavity and the enclosure (not shown here)
surrounding the lamp. The enclosure is required because the
Monte Carlo radiation model does not support semi-transparent
Lens boundaries (such as the outer surface of the lens) at domain
boundaries.

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 Problem Description: Dimensions

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 Preparation
• Copy the file head-lamp.msh.gz to your working directory
• Start the 3D double-precision version of ANSYS FLUENT
− If available, it is recommended to use 4 or more parallel process

6 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Setup and Solution
• Step 1: Mesh housing
− Read the mesh file head-lamp.msh.gz
reflector
• File -> Read -> Mesh
− Do a mesh check
• No errors or warnings are reported coating
bulb

lens

filament

The mesh consists of a combination of polyhedral

and wedge elements. Symmetry boundaries are
used to reduce the model size. Because of gravity, Symmetry boundaries
there is only one plane of symmetry for this
problem.

7 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Units and Setting Up Physics (Energy and Radiation)

• In Setting Up Physics, activate

Energy
− Technically this step could be skipped
as Fluent will enable energy when a
radiation model is selected
• Activate Radiation and choose the
Discrete Ordinates (DO) model
− Enter 1 for Energy Iterations Per
Radiation Iteration
− Enter 6 for Theta Pixels and Phi Pixels
• For radiation through a semi-
transparent medium, a minimum
number of 3 pixels is recommended
for theta and phi directions

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 Setting Up Physics: Materials

• Create a new solid material

named Glass
• Set property values as shown to
the right
− The absorption coefficient and
refractive index are important
properties for semi-transparent
materials
• Click Change/Create and select No
when prompted

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 Setting Up Physics: Materials

• Create two additional

solid materials,
polycarbonate and
coating with properties
shown to the right

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 Setting Up Physics: Materials (Air)

• For density, select incompressible ideal gas

• For Thermal Conductivity, select polynomial in the
drop-down list and enter 4 coefficients as shown
− The temperature of the headlamp varies from 280 K to
350 K, therefore the thermal conductivity will vary
considerably

• Keep default values for other parameters

− The absorption coefficient for air is negligible for most
applications

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 Setting Up Physics: Cell Zone Conditions
• For each of the three solid cell zones, check Participates in Radiation and define the
material as shown

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 Setting Up Physics: Cell Zone Conditions

• Open the cell zone conditions panel for cells-

housing-air and note that for fluid zones,
"Participates in Radiation" is on by default
− Don't change any settings in the panel, this instruction is
purely for demonstrative purposes

13 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Setting Up Physics: Operating Conditions

• In the operating conditions panel, define gravity in the

negative y direction
• If a specified operating density is not set, at each flow
iteration, the average air density throughout the
domain will be used for the operating density
− In many cases with gravity, it can be beneficial to specify the
operating density, especially if there are pressure boundaries,
however since this is an enclosure with no flow in or out, the
use of the average value is justified
• The Operating Temperature is not used unless
Boussinesq is selected for the density method
− When incompressible ideal gas is used, this is ignored by Fluent
14 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017
 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions

• Specify the inner surface of the lens as

semi-transparent
− This is an internal wall with cells on both
sides, so this setting is also propagated to the
shadow wall
• Set the diffuse fraction as 0.5
− We assume the lens is glass with a certain
roughness such that 50% of reflected radiation
undergoes diffuse reflection
• (not shown) For lens-inner-shadow, set
the diffuse fraction to 0.5
− Different sides of an interface can potentially
have different diffuse fractions so you have to
set this entry explicitly for each side

15 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions

• Specify the outer surface of the lens as semi-

transparent
• In the Thermal tab, select Mixed under Thermal
Conditions and enter values as shown to the
right
− The outer surface of the lens is exposed to ambient
air, which is not modeled, so this condition represents
both convective and radiative heat transfer with the
environment
• (not shown) In the Radiation tab, set the BC
Type to semi-transparent
− Leave the values of direct and diffuse irradiation as 0
• Other entries such as beam direction and beam
width will then have no effect
• Incident radiation will be applied according to the
radiation inputs entered in the Thermal tab

16 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions

• Specify the outer surface of the bulb as

semi-transparent
− This is an internal wall with cells on both sides,
so this setting is also propagated to the shadow
wall
• Set the diffuse fraction to 0.05
− The bulb would generally have a finer surface
finish than the lens
• (not shown) For bulb-outer-shadow, set
the diffuse fraction to 0.05
• (not shown) The walls "bulb-inner" and
"bulb-inner-shadow" are also semi-
transparent, so specify the same settings
shown on this slide for each of them
17 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017
 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions

• Specify the boundary condition for

coating on the outer surface of the bulb
• Activate Shell Conduction and click Edit
− Change the material to "coating" and enter a
thickness of 0.0001 m
• The coating has a thickness of ~0.1mm
• In the TUI, type
(rpsetvar 'temperature/shell-secondary-gradient? #f)

− This command will ignore secondary gradients

in highly skewed shell conduction cells, which
makes the numerical solution more robust

18 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions

• Specify the boundary condition for the

outer surface of the reflector
• Choose Mixed for Thermal Conditions
• Set the heat transfer coefficient to 7
w/m2-k and external emissivity to 0.95

19 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions

• Specify the boundary condition for the

inner surface of the reflector
• In the Thermal tab, set the Internal
Emissivity to 0.2
• (not shown) In the Radiation Tab, set the
diffuse fraction to 0.3
− If the diffuse fraction is 0, the incoming radiation
would be deflected so that the angle of
incidence equals the angle of reflection(specular
reflection)
− Here it is assumed the reflector is dusty, so
reflection is not perfectly specular (diffuse
fraction > 0)
• (not shown) For "reflector-inner-shadow",
set the Internal Emissivity to 0.2 and the
Diffuse Fraction to 0.3
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 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions

• Specify the heat flux at the filament

− The electric power dissipated from the filament
is 40 W
− The surface area is 6.9413e-6 m²
• Surface Integrals can be used to get this value
− The value entered in the panel is just 40 W /
surface area

21 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Solving: Methods

• Choose Body Force Weighted for Pressure

− In Fluent, you need to use PRESTO! or Body Force Weighted
whenever there is buoyancy
− In most cases the solution behavior is similar with either choice
• First Order Upwind is the default for Discrete Ordinates
− Second Order Upwind is only recommended for problems with
high optical thickness
• Note: Although the default SIMPLE Pressure-Velocity
Coupling Scheme is used here, other applications involving
natural convection and radiation may benefit from
changing to Coupled
− This can be investigated in the additional optional exercises at
the end of this tutorial
22 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017
 Solving: Controls

• Reduce the Under-Relaxation Factor for Momentum

to 0.6
• Set the Density and Body Forces Under-Relaxation
Factors to 0.8
− Slight reduction in the density and body forces under-
relaxation factors can help to stabilize the solution in many
variable density flows

23 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Create a Rake

• Create a rake to monitor velocity on

the symmetry plane
− Increase the number of points to 20
− Change the name to rake-velocity
− Click Select Points with Mouse and right click
on the symmetry plane at approximately the
locations indicated by the circles in the far
right image

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 Display the Rake
• Add the rake in the mesh display panel
and click Display
− Unselect the symmetry boundaries to
improve the visibility of the rake
− Also note that All must be selected under
Edge Type in order to make the rake visible

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 Solving: Report Definitions

• Create a Report Definition for the average velocity

over the rake

Name the report definition "head-lamp-v.out",

change the field variable to velocity magnitude,
select the rake from the surface list and tick
Report Plot and Report File
26 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017
 Solving: Report Definitions

• Create a Report Definition for the maximum

temperature on "reflector-inner"

Name the report definition "head-lamp-t.out",

change the field variable to static temperature,
select reflector-inner from the surface list and
tick Report Plot and Report File
27 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017
 Solving: Initialization and Run Calculation

• Save the case file

• Initialize with Standard Initialization
• Click Patch and patch a value of 500 K
for temperature in "cells-bulb-inside"
• Save the case and data file

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 Solving: Intermediate Solution 1
• Set the Under-Relaxation factors for Energy
and Discrete Ordinates to 0.8
• Click Equations… and unselect Flow
− Solving energy and radiation first allows the
solution to establish a more reasonable
temperature field before the flow equation is
activated
• Calculate for 20 iterations
− Doing a small number of iterations with lower
under-relaxation factors helps to stabilize the
solution
• Set the Energy and Discrete Ordinates
under-relaxation factors back to 1.0
− The solution will generally not converge properly
if these values are less than 1.0
• Calculate for 280 iterations
− This number is semi-arbitrary – the goal is just to
get the equations reasonably close to
convergence

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 Solving: Intermediate Solution 1

• The solution is reasonably stable, so now activate

Flow and deactivate Discrete Ordinates
− DO is computationally intensive so this allows the flow
solution to catch up in less wall clock time
• Calculate 150 iterations

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 Solving: Intermediate Solution 2

• The residuals should converge before 150 iterations

• The velocity monitor on the right shows the velocity field is
changing, meaning the solution is not really converged
• Activate the DO equation (not shown) so that all equations are
being solved and request 500 iterations
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 Solving: Run Calculation (final)

• The solution should converge before 500 additional

iterations
• Save the case and data file as head-lamp-do.cas.gz

32 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Postprocessing: Energy Balance

Energy input into the domain = 39.70 W

Net imbalance is .014%, which is excellent

33 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Postprocessing: Flow Visualization

Contours of temperature (left) and incident radiation (center) on housing-inner, Velocity vectors on symmetry planes
lens-inner and socket-inner. Note the hot spots in the temperature contours. In
a problem such as this involving a small highly localized source, increasing the
number of phi and theta divisions in the DO model can remedy the problem.
Low values were used in this tutorial simply so the solution would run faster.
34 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017
 Summary

• In this workshop you

− Set up and solved a problem for natural convection and radiation using the DO radiation
model
− Defined solid cell zones consisting of semi-transparent material to participate in the
radiation calculation
• The index of refraction and absorption coefficient are important material properties
for solid materials that participate in radiation
− Defined multiple semi-transparent boundaries
− Defined different diffuse fractions, representing the effect of surface finish on how the
radiation is reflected from a surface
− Used a solution procedure involving turning off different equations in different stages of
the solution in order to get convergence in the fewest iterations possible
• See additional optional exercises for running the case using more standard execution
procedures

35 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Additional Exercises (Optional)

• The solution procedure that you followed in this workshop represents an advanced
procedure that has been optimized to allow a converged solution to be reached as quickly
as possible
− Optimized for simulation of head lamps
− May or may not help in other kinds of applications
• For general applications, when using the DO model it is normally sufficient to solve using
standard methods and settings
• As an additional exercise, you can repeat the calculation using
− Segregated solver (Pressure-Velocity Coupling = SIMPLE) with solution methods and controls here
− Pressure-based Coupled Solver (Pressure-Velocity Coupling = Coupled) with solution controls tuned for
steady state natural convection and radiation
− Pseudo Transient Solver (Pressure-Velocity Coupling = Coupled, plus Pseudo-Transient check box) with
solution controls tuned for steady state natural convection and radiation

36 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Optional Exercise: Segregated Solver

• Instead of alternating between solution of energy,

DO and flow equations, just initialize and solve

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 Optional Exercise: Segregated Solver Solution Monitors

Solution convergence is smooth but it takes ~4X more iterations for monitors to stabilize.
Also note that unlike when using the optimized procedure, even after 2500 iterations, the DO residuals
have not yet reached the convergence criterion of 1e-5

38 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Optional Exercise: Pressure Based Coupled Solver (PBCS)

• Activate the pressure based

coupled solver and enter solution
methods and controls as shown
to the right
• Initialize and solve all equations
together

Note: In this problem, the use of

higher values of Flow Courant
Number led to divergence. In
other cases it might be possible to
improve convergence by using
higher values.

39 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Optional Exercise: PBCS Solution Monitors

Solution convergence is smooth but it still takes ~4X more iterations for monitors to stabilize.
Also note that unlike when using the optimized procedure, even after 2500 iterations, the DO residuals
have not yet reached the convergence criterion of 1e-5

40 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Optional Exercise: Pseudo-Transient Solver

• Activate the pressure based

coupled solver, check Pseudo
Transient and enter solution
• Enter Pseudo Transient settings in
the Run Calculation panel, as
shown to the right
• Initialize and solve all equations
together

Note: Increasing the timescale factor for the solid time step can sometimes help
improve convergence rate. Sometimes more aggressive settings can be used for
the fluid time scale, but in this problem it led to divergence

41 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Optional Exercise: Solution Monitors from Pseudo Transient

Solution convergence is smooth but it still takes ~4X more iterations for monitors to stabilize.
Also note that unlike when using the optimized procedure, even after 2500 iterations, the DO residuals
have not yet reached the convergence criterion of 1e-5

42 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017

 Optional Exercise: Summary

• The optional exercises show that it is not required to use the optimized solution
procedure presented in the main part of the workshop
− Standard methods can also be used
• It just takes a lot longer to get a converged solution
• However, the optimized procedure only applies to head lamps
• Use standard methods for other applications

43 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. December 29, 2017