[locloco]

Hey all,

I'm new to CFD forums and CFD modeling.

I would like to model the heat dissipation across and object in with some air flow across it.

Is it possible to do this with OpenFOAM? Is there a better open source program to use?

How much of a challenge am I in for?!

Thanks!

[akidess]

Originally Posted by locloco

I would like to model the heat dissipation across and object in with some air flow across it.

I don't fully understand what you want, but it sounds like heat conduction in solid plus heat transfer plus fluid flow in a gas phase. The easiest way to do it is just model the solid and specify a convective heat transfer boundary condition on the surface. That's simple enough to do. A bit more complicated is to have the solid plus computation of the flow, because then you will need a conjugate heat transfer solver. This is available in OpenFoam too, it's just a bit harder to set up. I don't have experience with other open source solvers, but OpenFoam is definitely suitable for what you want to accomplish.

[locloco]

Thanks!

That's exactly what I wanted to know.

It looks like I will need a conjugate heat transfer solver.

As far as creating mesh objects and all....can I load a step file into OpenFOAM or will I need to build some front end type of conversion tool?

[danishdude]

If you convert the step file to an STL you can mesh it with Snappy Hex Mesh. You could also import the STEP file into Salome, use that to create the grid, export the grid as an Ideas UNV file, and import the result into OpenFOAM. Salome might make it easier to assign boundary conditions.