In a steady state CHT simulation, how to deal with the solid motion without moving the

solid?
by Alistair Field
on 10/30/2017
8 views
Categories: Heat Transfer   •  Products: STAR-CCM+   •  Version Applicable: N/A   •  Article Number: 14738

Attachments: Test_Solid_Convectiv_Velcoity.sim

The heat conduction in solid is a diffusion process and by default the energy equation in solid does not contain a convective term.
However, in many situations the solid could also be moving (rotation or translation), and at the same time you want to run the
simulation as steady state. Therefore it is necessary to include a convective term in the solid energy equation to avoid the motion of
the solid.

The "Convective Velocity" option under solid region in STAR-CCM+ is designed for such situations.
Go to the corresponding solid region and turn on this option by:
Regions > Solid > Physics Condition > Convective Source Option > turn it on, then under "Physics Values" a new node "Convective
Velocity" appears, where you can define the translation velocity and rotation rate.

The solid energy equation looks like following:

where is the convective term.

Find more information in the User Guide:

User Guide >| Modeling Physics >| Modeling Heat Transfer >| Energy Reference >| Conditions >| Convective Velocity Option

However, this option should only be used when the region is a pure body of rotation or translation. This is not the case when holes
or grooves are present in the solid.
 
For pure body translation, pay attention when judging the heat balance of the solid region. If a heat transfer report is used to check
the heat balance on all the boundaries of the solid region, the sum may not be 0. The reason is, because there are always some
boundaries, whose area vector is not normal to the solid velocity, which introduces a convective heat and this convective heat is not
considered in the heat transfer report. Therefore define another user field function and a report to account for this convective heat
manually. For example, the user field function could be like following:

${Density}*${Cp_Solid}*${Temperature}*dot($${solid_velocity},$${Area}/mag($${Area})),

| 

Page 1 of 3
| 
Use a surface integral report to summarize the total convective heat on the solid region.

The total diffusion heat of the solid region can be calculated directly from the heat transfer report.
And the sum of the convective and diffusion heat gives us the solid energy balance, see following plot:

An example .sim file is attached here for your reference.

See also:
How to take into account the heat transfer in a solid brake disc due to rotation in a steady state analysis?

STAR-CCM+ Documentation Section:

User Guide > Modeling Physics > Modeling Heat Transfer > Energy Reference > Conditions > Convective Velocity Option

Page 2 of 3
Page 3 of 3