Fill out the form to download

Required field
Required field
Not a valid email address
Required field
Required field

  • Set up your own cloud-native simulation in minutes.

    • Documentation

    SimScale DocumentationSimulation SetupAdvanced ConceptsPower Source

    Power Source

    Power sources or heat sources can be used to simulate heat generation from a volume. Application examples include electronic equipment and HVAC systems, e.g., to model heat generated by chips on a circuit board.

    Preparation

    SimScale currently supports power sources within four analysis types:

    In all cases, the power source has to be assigned to a volume which can be one of the following:

    • A CAD part (this only applies to conjugate analysis as convective analysis contains only the fluid volume)
    • A geometry primitive (cartesian box, sphere, cylinder).
    • A cell zone of any arbitrary shape.

    Both watts \((W)\) and British thermal units \((Btu/s)\) are allowed to define power.

    Approach

    In the simulation tree, navigate to Advanced Concepts and add a Power source by clicking on the ‘+’ button (circled). Absolute and Specific power sources are supported.

    settings panel for power sources
    Figure 1: Accessing Power sources feature in the SimScale Workbench. The source can be a CAD part or a geometry primitive

    Did you know?

    Power sources are supported in parametric studies within SimScale. To define the power sources of interest and run a parametric experiment, you can click on this button:

    parametrization power source
    Figure 2: A parametric experiment allows you to run multiple simulations in parallel with different power source values

    This article provides more details about the setup of parametric experiments.

    Absolute Power Source

    This type of source has to be used when the total power emitted by the heating element is known. The user is required to provide this value and choose the relevant volume region in the domain.

    Specific Power Source

    This type of source has to be used when the power density is known. This is simply total power per unit volume in \(m^3\) or \(in^3\). This quantity is often provided for batteries and fuel cells, for example.

    Important

    If a power source is applied to multiple entities, each of them will generate the prescribed power value. For example, if a heat source with a value of 100 \(W\) is assigned to two entities, each will emit 100 \(W\).

    each chip has a 1.5W heat load applied to it.
    Figure 3: Applying 1.5 \(W\) heat loads to each of the 6 chips means the total power defined is 9 \(W\).

    Note

    If you assign a negative value to a power source, it will extract heat from the system acting as a heat sink.

    Last updated: June 15th, 2023

    Contents