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Assumptions and limitations for importing a model
The following section describes the Thermal Model Exchanger assumptions and limitations when you import a Simcenter 3D model into Thermal Desktop.
Importing thermal loads
Thermal Model Exchanger supports the Heat Load and Heat Flux types of Simcenter 3D Thermal Loads. It converts these entities into the Total Load and Flux types of Thermal Desktop Heat Load, respectively.

User manual
- Introduction
  Thermal Model Exchanger is an application that allows you to transfer thermal models between Thermal Desktop and Simcenter 3D. The application supports the transfer of the meshes, material and optical properties, and boundary conditions of your model.
- Prerequisites and operating system
  Thermal Model Exchanger requires the installation of AutoCAD with Thermal Desktop. The Thermal Model Exchanger application uses the OpenTD Application Programming Interface (API) to exchange data between Simcenter 3D and Thermal Desktop. Since OpenTD only supports C#, Thermal Model Exchanger can only run on Windows.
- Thermal Model Exchanger user interface
- How to use Thermal Model Exchanger
- Simcenter 3D entities supported by Thermal Model Exchanger
- Thermal Desktop entities supported by Thermal Model Exchanger
- Assumptions and limitations for importing a model
  The following section describes the Thermal Model Exchanger assumptions and limitations when you import a Simcenter 3D model into Thermal Desktop.
  - Importing meshes
    For each mesh in the Simcenter 3D model, Thermal Model Exchanger creates an FE Mesh Importer entity in Thermal Desktop.
  - Importing thermo-physical properties
    Thermal Desktop does not have a concept equivalent to the mesh collector in Simcenter 3D. The thermo-physical properties, which you specify on a mesh collector, are directly assigned to elements or nodes in Thermal Desktop.
  - Importing thermal loads
    Thermal Model Exchanger supports the Heat Load and Heat Flux types of Simcenter 3D Thermal Loads. It converts these entities into the Total Load and Flux types of Thermal Desktop Heat Load, respectively.
  - Importing temperature constraints
    In Simcenter 3D, the Temperature constraint is applied on 2D elements, element faces and edges, whereas in Thermal Desktop, this is applied on nodes by setting the Node type to Boundary and selecting the Override calculations by elements/surfaces check box. The temperature magnitude value is defined in the Initial temp box.
  - Importing thermal couplings
    Thermal Model Exchanger imports Simcenter 3D Thermal Coupling simulation object as Contactors in Thermal Desktop. The application only supports the Thermal Coupling type of Thermal Coupling simulation object. The Perfect Contact and Additional Conductance types are not supported.
  - Importing radiation
    Simcenter 3D Space System Thermal computes radiation using the Radiation simulation object, which contains the All Radiation and Enclosure Radiation types to support radiation calculation between all the surfaces of a model and the surfaces of an enclosure defined by the user respectively. Thermal Model Exchanger only supports the All Radiation type of the Radiation simulation object, it skips any existing Enclosure Radiation type and displays a warning message in the import summary.
  - Importing orbits and space environments
    Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal provides several entities for defining orbits and space environments:
  - Importing a solution
    A solution in Simcenter 3D corresponds to a case set in Thermal Desktop. The Simcenter 3D XML file, which is translated by Thermal Model Exchanger, is the thermal solver input file for one solution. The application creates a single case set per XML file.
- Assumptions and limitations for exporting a model
  The following section describes the Thermal Model Exchanger assumptions and limitations when you export a Thermal Desktop model to a Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal XML file.

Importing thermal loads

Thermal Model Exchanger supports the Heat Load and Heat Flux types of Simcenter 3D Thermal Loads. It converts these entities into the Total Load and Flux types of Thermal Desktop Heat Load, respectively.

Thermal Model Exchanger does not support the Heat Generation type of Thermal Loads. It skips this entity during the import, and displays a warning message to let you know that it was not imported to Thermal Desktop.

Thermal Model Exchanger supports constant, time-dependent and temperature-dependent values for thermal heat loads and fluxes. The combination of time and temperature dependent values is not supported, Thermal Models Exchanger imports the first value of the table defined in Simcenter 3D and displays a warning in the import summary.

Thermal Model Exchanger supports Simcenter 3D thermal loads that are applied on surfaces, edges, 2D elements or element edges. If the Simcenter 3D model has thermal loads applied on a mix of different entities, which are not supported in Thermal Desktop, Thermal Model Exchanger imports the thermal load only on elements, and show a warning in the import summary.

If the Per Selection Entity option is selected in the Distribution group of the Simcenter 3D Heat Load dialog box, Thermal Model Exchanger multiplies the value of the heat load by the number of selected elements.