Which solver for combined cfd and solid state heat transfer?
 

Hello all,

I am rather new to FEM, only did a bit of 2D magnetic field calculation some years ago.

My current project is a heat storage tank for a big solar thermal system. I want to compare different configurations inside and outside a stratified storage. The software I want to use must be open source or freeware as I'm not able to pay for things like ANSYS. I started with the geometry module of salome and wrote some python scripts to build the model(s). Currently I'm doing my first experiences with meshing (mesh module of salome).

In my first test case I want to place two layers of water one upon the other. The upper layer is e. g. 45°C and the lower one 20°C. Both have contact to the steel wall of the tank that transfers heat from warm to cold water. I want to see what really happens to the two layers over time. In a later version also the external insulation should be modeled.

My question to you is: Which solver / software package would you recommend for this job? I have both convection in the water and also heat transfer in the solid wall. Later also warm or cold water should flow into the tank and I want to see what happens. I did a first preliminary test with code saturne but only with the water itself. Seemed to combine well with salome.

Attached is a screenshot of my geometry. This is a part of the tank with water and wall. This case could probably also be modeled in 2D but I want to get familiar with 3D.

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks in advance

heliosoph

Dear Friedrich,

what you are looking for is called "conjugate heat transfer" in the cfd community. I'm doing calculations like this for many years in my company (www.beilke-cfd.de) using StarCCM+ but did not find an easy to use open-source package.

Viele Grüße
Jörn

Dear Jörn,

thanks for the info. I looked further around and I found a package that is called syrthes. It can be coupled with code saturne to model conjugate heat transfer.

As I have a debian system and both packages are in the repositories installation should be easy. Then coupling, meshing and bringing it all together will be my next jobs. Looks like I will have a lot to learn...

Best regards

heliosoph

OpenFOAM has conjugate heat transfer capabilities. It is not as easy to setup as Fluent or Star, of course, but it is possible:

http://www.slideshare.net/ARPITSINGH...regiontutorial

There is a lot of discussion of this solver here:

http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/tag...egionfoam.html