Home
User documentation
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.
Exporting thermo-physical properties
You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export thermo-physical properties from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
Exporting physical properties
You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export physical properties from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.

User documentation
- Introduction
  Thermal Model Exchanger is a Windows application that allows you to transfer thermal models between Ansys Thermal Desktop^TM and Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal. The application supports the transfer of meshes, material and optical properties, and boundary conditions of your model.
- Thermal Model Exchanger user interface
  The Thermal Model Exchanger user interface consists of a top border bar and an information window.
- How to use Thermal Model Exchanger
  The following section describes how to use Thermal Model Exchanger to transfer thermal models between Thermal Desktop and Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
- Simcenter 3D entities supported by Thermal Model Exchanger
  This page summarizes the Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal entities supported by the Thermal Model Exchanger during the import.
- Thermal Desktop entities supported by Thermal Model Exchanger
  This page summarizes the Thermal Desktop entities supported by the Thermal Model Exchanger during the export.
- Assumptions and limitations for importing a model
  The following section describes the Thermal Model Exchanger assumptions and limitations when you import a Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal model into Thermal Desktop.
- 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.
  - Exporting meshes
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export meshes from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
  - Exporting primitives
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export primitives from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
  - Exporting domain tag sets
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export Domain Tag Sets from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal as Groups.
  - Exporting symbols
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export symbol values from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
  - Exporting thermo-physical properties
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export thermo-physical properties from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
    - Exporting material properties
      Thermal Model Exchanger supports exporting materials from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
    - Exporting physical properties
      You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export physical properties from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
    - Exporting optical properties
      Thermal Model Exchanger exports all the Thermal Desktop thermo-physical properties available in the model, even if some of them are not assigned to mesh elements.
  - Exporting heat loads
    Thermal Model Exchanger supports the Total Load and Flux types of Thermal Desktop Heat Load. It converts these entities into the Heat Load and Heat Flux types of Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal Thermal Loads respectively.
  - Exporting heaters
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export Heaters from Thermal Desktop to Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
  - Exporting boundary nodes
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export boundary nodes from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
  - Exporting contactors
    Thermal Model Exchanger exports Thermal Desktop Contactors as a Thermal Coupling type of Thermal Coupling simulation objects in Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
  - Exporting radiation
    You can use the Thermal Model Exchanger to export radiation from Thermal Desktop to Simcenter 3D. The surface selection varies depending on the settings in Thermal Desktop.
  - Exporting orbits and space environment
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export External Heating Environment boundary conditions from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
  - Exporting a case set
    You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export case sets from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.
- Legal notice

Exporting physical properties

You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to export physical properties from Thermal Desktop into Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal.

Exporting element thickness

In Thermal Desktop, the thickness is a property of mesh elements, while in Simcenter 3D the element thickness is specified using the Thin Shell physical property.

During export, Thermal Model Exchanger (TMX) creates a Simcenter 3D Thin Shell physical property with the thickness value of the element set and it assigns the physical property to the mesh collector.

Exporting material stack and insulation properties

You can use TMX to export material stack and insulation properties from Thermal Desktop as a Multi-layer Shell Non-Uniform physical property in Simcenter 3D.

TMX exports the base thin shell layer in Thermal Desktop as the first layer of the Multi-layer Shell Non-Uniform physical property, with additional layers that represent each stacked layer. Each layer has its specified material as defined in Thermal Desktop.

If there are multiple nodes within a layer, TMX divides the total thickness evenly across nodes to ensure a uniform thickness distribution within the multi-layer shell.

Optical properties are applied only to the top or bottom layer, which models the radiative effects.

Layer coupling export depends on material properties as follows:

When both effective emissivity and conductivity are greater than zero, both conduction and radiation coupling are specified.
When effective emissivity is greater than zero and conductivity is zero, only radiation coupling is applied.
When effective emissivity is zero and conductivity is greater than zero, coupling is determined based on the properties of each layer.