Importing thermal loads

Supported element types

TMX supports Simcenter 3D thermal loads that are applied on surfaces, edges, element edges, 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D elements.

You must surface coat 3D elements with 2D null shell elements to import:

• Thermal Loads of the Heat Flux type applied on 3D elements.
• Thermal Loads that are applied on polygon or 3D element faces.

If the Simcenter 3D model has thermal loads applied on a mix of different entities, which are not supported in Thermal Desktop, TMX imports the thermal load only on elements, and shows a warning in the import summary.

TMX does not support importing Heat Flux applied on nodes because of the lack of area, and shows a warning in the import summary.

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

When the Per Element option is selected in the Distribution group of the Simcenter 3D Thermal Loads dialog box, and elements of different sizes are selected, TMX multiplies the value of the heat load by the number of selected elements. Thermal Desktop then distributes this total value across the elements, weighting it according to the dimensions of each element. This behavior differs from Simcenter 3D, where the heat load value is applied uniformly to each element regardless of size.

Thermostats and active heater controllers

When a thermal load contains a Thermostat modeling object, it is imported to Thermal Desktop as a Heater with a sense temperature selection and Proportional is set to Off. When it contains an Active Heater Controller modeling object of the Proportional type, Proportional is set to On in the Heater dialog box.

TMX ignores the Active Heater Controller modeling object of the PID Controller type.

In Thermal Desktop, the load selection is defined based on the thermal load selection in Simcenter 3D. The sense temperature selection is defined based on the thermostat or active heater controller selection.

You can import Thermostat and Active Heater Controller modeling objects applied on 2D, 1D, and 0D elements. In Simcenter 3D, for 3D elements, you must surface coat them with 2D null shell elements and select the 2D mesh elements when defining the Thermostat or the Active Heater Controller to import them into Thermal Desktop.

For Simcenter 3D 2406 or later versions, the Combined Temperature Across Sensor Selection option in the Thermostat or Active Heater Controller modeling objects are used to set the Sense Method in the Heater in Thermal Desktop.

For prior versions to Simcenter 3D 2406, the Sense Method in the Heater is set to the default value Area Weighted Average Temperature.

For Simcenter 3D steady state solutions, the following table summarizes how the method to treat thermostats in the steady state analysis are imported to Thermal Desktop.

For Simcenter 3D transient solutions, the Set to Applied to Mid Point Temperature is used for the heater in Thermal Desktop.