Importing radiation

You can use Thermal Model Exchanger to import Radiation simulation objects from Simcenter 3D Space Systems Thermal to Thermal Desktop.

Supported radiation types

Simcenter 3D Space Systems 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 (TMX) supports importing both the All Radiation and Enclosure Radiation types of the Radiation simulation object from Simcenter 3D to Thermal Desktop. Thermal Desktop does not have an equivalent boundary condition entity. Radiation is computed using a Radiation Analysis Group that contains all the selected surfaces and a Radiation Task that controls the radiation parameters within the active case set. In the Radiation Analysis Group, the imported All Radiation type is named Base and the Enclosure Radiation type is named Radiation.

If your Simcenter 3D model contains multiple Radiation simulation objects of the All Radiation type, the TMX creates only one Base analysis group and ignores the others. An error message will be displayed in the import summary.

Supported element types

You can import Radiation simulation object applied on 3D, 2D, 1D and 0D elements. To import Radiation simulation object applied on 3D elements, you must surface coat 3D elements with 2D null shell elements.

The Radiation simulation object applied on 0D element is only imported to Thermal Desktop if the 0D element is imported as a solid sphere. TMX does not support importing Radiation simulation object applied on 0D element imported as node.

The Radiation simulation object applied on 1D beam elements with tapered selection type are not imported to Thermal Desktop.

Import process

When importing a Radiation simulation object to Thermal Desktop, the TMX application:

  • Creates, for the All Radiation type, a Radiation Analysis Group that contains all the surfaces imported from the Simcenter 3D Radiation simulation object.
  • Creates, for the Enclosure Radiation type, two Radiation Analysis Group, one for top and one for bottom, that contains all the surfaces imported from the Simcenter 3D Radiation simulation object.
  • Selects the Calculate Radiation on the Calculations tab in the Case Set dialog box.
  • Creates and adds a Radiation Task to the case set.

You must verify all the other Thermal Desktop parameters or options in the Case Set dialog box required to perform radiation calculation.

Limitations and alternatives

TMX does not support the Include Radiative Environment option available in the Simcenter 3D Radiation simulation object. To enable a similar option in Thermal Desktop, select the appropriate option in the Radk Output tab accessible when you edit the Radiation Analysis Group parameters of the active case set.