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0 Release

Quick Workshop 2: Convection (Newton’s Law)

ANSYS Mechanical Heat Transfer

1 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 Overview

• Goal
– Understanding the 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.m-1.K-1
with a temperature of 30°C

– The results obtained with ANSYS will be compared with a hand calculation

2 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 Project Startup

File>Restore Archive >Convection.wbpz

• The Project Schematic looks like this

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

3 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 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

4 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 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

5 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 Postprocessing

Solve the Model

View the Temperature Distribution

6 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 Postprocessing

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

7 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

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

8 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 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
9 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016
 Comparison with hand calculation
T L
Let us use Fourier’s Law to calculate Rthcond 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
10 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016
 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

11 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016

 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

12 © 2016 ANSYS, Inc. July 14, 2016