Ansys Mechanical Heat Transfer

Workshop 01.2: Convection (Newton’s

Law)

Release 2021 R2

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 Overview

• Goal
‐ Understanding Newton’s Law and how it is applied by the Ansys solver for modeling the convection

• Model Description
‐ The model is a simple cubic block that can be seen as a concrete wall heated from inside by a radiator

‐ The outside temperature is 5°C and the film coefficient of the heating air is 10 W/M².K-1 with a
temperature of 30°C

‐ The results obtained with Ansys will be compared with a hand calculation

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 Project Startup

File > Open > Convection.wbpz

• The Project Schematic looks like this

• Set the unit system in Mechanical to: Metric (kg, m, N, s, V, A)

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 Model Description

• Check the material by double clicking on ‘Engineering Data’

• The material used is concrete with a low thermal conductivity

• Go back to the Project page by closing the Engineering Data

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 Model Description

• Double click on Model to open Mechanical and check the Units

• Click on the corresponding edges to view the cube’s dimensions

• Generate the Mesh

0.2 m

• Check the Boundary Conditions 1m

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 Postprocessing

• Solve the Model

• View the Temperature Distribution

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 Postprocessing

• Drag and drop the two applied boundary conditions to the ‘Solution’ branch to get the
probes, and evaluate all the results

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 Comparison with hand calculation

• After evaluating all the results, the heat balance is equal to zero and the heat transiting
the structure is equal to 66.176 W in absolute value

• We will do the hand calculation using the same inputs:

• Recall the equations in slide 10 of the Module 01
T 1
• A=1 𝒎𝟐 q= Where, Rth =
Rthconv conv
h A
• h = 10 𝑾. 𝒎−𝟐 . 𝑲−𝟏 (Check the boundary conditions)
• Rthconv is then equal to 0.1 𝑾. 𝒎−𝟏

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 Comparison with hand calculation

• We must not forget that the convection is between the solid and the surrounding fluid,
but the conduction within the solid is always there and must be taken into account
𝑻𝑺 Conduction
Convection 𝑻𝟏
𝑻𝑭

h, A L, A, 𝑲𝑳
equation 1 equation 2 equation 3

T1 − TF T1 − TS TS − TF Once ‘q’ is calculated from equation 1, we will use either

q= = = equation 2 or 3 to calculate 𝑇𝑆
Rthconv + Rthcond Rthcond Rthconv
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 Comparison with hand calculation

• Let us use Fourier’s Law to calculate Rthcond T L

q= Where, Rth =
Rthcond cond
KL  A
• A = 1 𝒎𝟐
• L = 0.2 𝒎
• K L = 0.72 𝑾. 𝒎−𝟏 . 𝑲−𝟏 (Concrete → look in the Engineering Data)
• Rthcond is then equal to 0.27778 𝑾. 𝒎−𝟏 . From equation 1 of the previous slide:

𝟓−𝟑𝟎
• 𝒒= = −𝟔𝟔. 𝟏𝟕𝟔 𝑾
𝟎.𝟏+𝟎.𝟐𝟕𝟕𝟕𝟖
• Check the value obtained with Mechanical in slide 7

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 Comparison with hand calculation

• We will use equation 3 of slide 9 to calculate 𝑻𝑺 :

TS − TF
q= = −66.176
Rthconv
• 𝑻𝑭 = 𝟑𝟎 °𝑪
• Rthconv = 𝟎. 𝟏 𝑾. 𝒎−𝟏

• 𝑻𝑺 = 𝟐𝟑. 𝟑𝟖𝟐 °𝑪

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 Comparison with hand calculation

• Return to Mechanical
• Right click on solution and insert a temperature probe

• Scope to the surface on which the convection is applied. We retrieve the same
calculated value of 23.382 °𝑪

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End of presentation