Creating a Thermal Connection Behavior
The conductive heat transfer between two surfaces is proportional to the temperature difference between the surfaces and the conductance across the gap between the surfaces. The default behavior for a thermal contact connection is a conductance value of zero, representing a perfectly insulated surface. See Contact Pairs for information on assigning a connection behavior to a contact connection to describe nondefault behavior.
Thermal connection behaviors are assigned in the Thermal Analysis workbench.
This task shows you how to define a thermal connection behavior.
Click the Thermal Connection Behavior icon
.The Thermal Connection Behavior dialog box appears. The data table for the conductance will appear in the bottom half of the dialog box. In addition, a Thermal Connection Behavior object appears in the specification tree under a Nonlinear and Thermal Properties feature.
You can change the connection behavior identifier by editing the Name field. This name will be used in the specification tree.
Enter a description for the connection behavior in the Description field.
Enter values for the clearance distance between the surfaces and the corresponding conductance in the data table cells. You must start with a clearance of 0.0 and the corresponding conductance when the surfaces are touching. You must end with a conductance of 0.0 and the corresponding clearance at which no conduction takes place. You must enter at least two rows of data, and the clearance values must be unique.
To add or delete table rows, click Add or Delete below the data table.
To import clearance and conductance data from a file, click the Folder icon
, and select a text file.To specify temperature-dependent data for the conductance, toggle on Use temperature-dependent data.
An Avg. Temperature column will appear in the data table in which you can enter the average temperature of the two surfaces.
Click OK in the Thermal Connection Behavior dialog box.