How to model natural convection
 

Hi all,

I'm modeling a heatsink with several heat sources distributed on it. The whole system is exposed to air and cooled by natural convection. But could anyone tell me how to specify the space surrounding the system as air/fluid in Fluent/Gambit and how to set parameters for natural convection?

Thank you,

Ken

Re: How to model natural convection
 

You can give the heat transfer coeff as a boundary condition to wall, if you have a wall boundary and heat convection is taking place over it.

Else you can model the entire domain with surroundings and fluent will calculate the heat transfer.

Re: How to model natural convection
 

Thank you, Suijth. But could you explain more on the last sentence?

Re: How to model natural convection
 

You have to make two zones in the domain, fluid and solid. At the interface btween the two, fluent will make it a coupled wall boundary condition. Only thermal eqns will be solved in the Solid. Now you can model the natural convection over this wall.

there is one tutorial available at fluentusers.com, tutorial 5 , which solves a problem with natural convection. You may need to use bossenisque parameters for good results in natural convection.

Sujith

Re: How to model natural convection
 

Thank you very much.