Appendix Six

Thermal Analysis
Thermal Analysis
Basics of Steady-State Heat Transfer Training Manual

• A steady-state thermal analysis is performed to determine

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

the thermal response under applied steady-state loads
– Temperatures and heat flow rate are usually the items of
interest, although heat fluxes can be reported as well.

• The general thermal equation is as follows:

 C  T  T    K  T  T    Q t , T 
where t is time and {T} is temperature, [C] is the specific
heat (thermal capacitance) matrix, [K] is the conductivity
matrix, and {Q} is the heat flow rate load vector.
• In a steady-state analysis, all time-dependent terms are
removed. However, nonlinearities can be present:

 K  T  T    Q T  August 26, 2005

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 Thermal Analysis
… Elements Used Training Manual

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

In Simulation, the following elements are used:
– Solid bodies are meshed with 10-node tetrahedral or 20-node
hexahedral elements
• SOLID87 and SOLID90
– Surface bodies are meshed with 4-node quad shell elements
• SHELL57 using real constants
• (SHELL131 or SHELL132 are currently not used.)
– Line bodies are meshed with 2-node line elements
• LINK33 using real constants
• An equivalent cross-sectional area, as defined in DesignModeler, is
used for LINK33

– For thermal-stress analyses, a coupled-field element is not used.

The thermal-stress analysis is performed sequentially, so the
above thermal elements are used, then the temperature field is
read into corresponding structural elements.
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 Thermal Analysis
… Material Properties Training Manual

• Thermal conductivity is input into ANSYS as MP

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

commands.
– For temperature-dependent thermal conductivity, the
appropriate MPTEMP and MPDATA commands are issued

• Although specific heat may be defined in the “Engineering

Data” branch, it is currently unused and not passed to
ANSYS
– MP,C commands are not written for specific heat

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 Thermal Analysis
… Assemblies – Solid Body Contact Training Manual

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

Internally, thermal contact for solid faces is defined with
CONTA174 and TARGE170 elements.
– KEYOPT(1)=2 set for thermal DOF only
– KEYOPT(12) is based on contact type used
• For example, bonded type is KEYOPT(12)=5. KEYOPT(2),
KEYOPT(5), KEYOPT(9), and FKN are also set. These contact
settings are most critical for structural contact, so the various default
settings are outlined in Chapter 4.
– Default thermal contact conductance (TCC) is based on highest
value of thermal conductivity of materials and overall geometry
size
• TCC=KXX*10,000/ASMDIAG
– KXX is of highest thermal conductivity value of used materials
– ASMDIAG is diagonal of overall ‘bounding box’ of assembly
• TCC is not used for MPC (KEYOPT(2)=2 on CONTA174)
– If Normal Lagrange formulation is set, KEYOPT(2) reset to 0.
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 Thermal Analysis
… Assemblies – Surface Body Contact Training Manual

• Internally, any contact including an edge (solid body edge

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

or surface edge) results in asymmetric contact with
CONTA175 for the edge and TARGE170 for the edge/face
– Undocumented KEYOPT(1)=2 is set for thermal contact
• Contact involving solid edges default to pure penalty method
• Contact involving surface edges use MPC formulation. Instead of
“target normal,” if search direction is “pinball region,”
KEYOPT(5)=4 set on companion TARGE170 element.
• For bonded contact (default), both
use KEYOPT(12)=5 and
CONTA175 elements
KEYOPT(9)=1.

• For surface faces in contact with

other faces, standard surface-to-
surface contact is used, namely
CONTA174 and TARGE170 TARGE170 elements

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 Thermal Analysis
… Assemblies – Spot Weld Training Manual

• Internally, spot welds are defined as a set of LINK33

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

elements. The spot weld is defined with one link element,
and the top and bottom of the spot weld is connected to the
shell or solid elements with a ‘spider web’ of multiple links.
– The LINK33 elements use
same thermal conductivity
as underlying materials but
with a circular cross-section
with radius=5*thickness of
underlying shells
– Figure on right shows two
spot welds between two sets
of shell elements, which are
made translucent for clarity.

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 Thermal Analysis
… Thermal Loads in ANSYS Training Manual

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

The internal representation of loads in ANSYS:
– Heat flow for an edge or vertex is a heat flow rate (F,,HEAT)
– Heat flux or heat flow for a surface is surface load (SF,,HFLUX)
– Internal heat generation is applied as a body load (BFE,,HGEN)
– Given temperature is applied as a constraint (D,,TEMP)
– Perfectly insulated condition internally removes any loads
applied in Simulation on those surface(s).
– Convection is defined by surface effect SURF152 elements
• Bulk temperature and film coefficient is applied on the surface effect
elements (SF,,CONV,film,bulk)
• If temperature-dependent film coefficients exist, these are defined
with a temperature-dependent HF material property (MPDATA,HF).
The film coefficient value applied will be “–HF_number,” and ANSYS
knows to use the referenced HF material property number.
• KEYOPT(8) is set to be consistent with temperature evaluation of
h(T), such as evaluate h(T) based on surface temperature.
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 Thermal Analysis
… Solution Options in ANSYS Training Manual

• The solver selection for direct vs. iterative:

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

– The solvers used are either the direct sparse solver
(EQSLV,SPARSE) or the PCG solver (EQSLV,PCG)
• The JCG solver is not used in thermal analyses
– A simplified discussion between the two solvers:
• If given the linear static case of [K]{x} = {F}, Direct solvers factorize [K] to
solve for [K]-1. Then, {x} = [K]-1{F}.
– This factorization is computationally expensive but is done once.
• Iterative solvers use a preconditioner [Q] to solve the equation [Q][K]{x} =
[Q]{F}. Assume that [Q] = [K]-1. In this trivial case, [I]{x} = [K]-1{F}. However,
the preconditioner is not usually [K]-1. The closer [Q] is to [K]-1, the better the
preconditioning is, and this process is repeated - hence the name, iterative
solver.
– For iterative solvers, matrix multiplication (not factorization) is performed. This is
much faster than matrix inversion if done entirely in RAM, so, as long as the number
of iterations is not very high (which happens for well-conditioned matrices), iterative
solvers can be more efficient than sparse solvers.
– The main difference between the iterative solvers in ANSYS — PCG, JCG, ICCG — is
the type of pre-conditioner used.

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 Thermal Analysis
… Solution Options in ANSYS Training Manual

• Solver working directory:

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

– The ANSYS input file is written as “ds.dat” in the solver
directory. The output file is “solve.out” and can be viewed in
the “Worksheet” tab of the “Solution Information” branch.
– ANSYS is executed in batch mode (-b) as a separate process.
During solution, the results file .rth is written. The results are
also read in and XML results files are generated in batch
mode. The XML files are then read into Simulation.
– All associated ANSYS files have default jobname of “file” and
are deleted after solution, unless changed in “Tools >
Options… > Simulation: Solution > Save Ansys Files”.

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 Thermal Analysis
… Solution Options in ANSYS Training Manual

• Some solution options are also defined:

ANSYS Workbench – Simulation

– Solution control is used
• This is different from structural analyses in Simulation where
Solution Control is turned off
– ANSYS shape checking is turned off (SHPP,OFF)
– If nonlinear, the number of substeps (NSUBST,1,10,1) and
number of equilibrium iterations (NEQIT,20) are defined
• CNVTOL also set, where minimum reference heat flow rate is
defined as 1e-6 W
– Only Simulation-supported results is output with OUTRES, not
everything by default
• Results are later written to XML files in /POST1, which are then
read back into Simulation. Hence, Simulation does not directly
read the results from the .rth file

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