Heat Transfer | Posted on
May 1st, 2013 by
Fanny Littmarck
Given the title of this blog post you might expect it to be about global warming, and I won’t blame you for it; greenhouse effect has become another popular term used when debating climate change. However, its original and literal meaning refers to a very different process, in particular when it comes to heat retention. Here we will describe the effect of heating up an actual greenhouse and suggest steps for optimizing its design.
Read more on: The Greenhouse Effect
Heat Transfer | Posted on
April 22nd, 2013 by
Fanny Littmarck
Chemical reaction fluids can be cooled using glass flanges. The reaction fluid is passed through the flange and the air surrounding the flange then serves as the coolant. Engineers looking to optimize the cooling performance of such flanges can look to simulation for help.
Read more on: Cooling Flange Performance Analysis
Heat Transfer | Posted on
March 26th, 2013 by
Valerio Marra
A lot of effort is put into inventing or improving existing technologies used to cool buildings, food, or any goods that need to be stored at a definite temperature. The reason is simple: adopting more efficient designs will result in achieving the same goal while consuming less energy. Both our balance sheet and the environment will benefit from these solutions. Here we will explore modeling temperature of a passive cooling design using a wine cellar as an example.
Read more on: Modeling Temperature of a Wine Cellar
Heat Transfer | Posted on
February 27th, 2013 by
Fanny Littmarck
Cars need brakes for obvious reasons, and you don’t want these to fail. Brake failure can be caused by many things, one of which is the overheating of the brake’s disc. As I’ve said before, no engineer wants to design a product that fails, which is also true in the case of brake-disc design. Let’s study a scenario of a car in panic brake mode, and find out how hot the brake discs and pads get as well as how much they cool down in between brake engagements.
Read more on: Simulating Heating of Brake Discs in a Car
Heat Transfer | Posted on
February 21st, 2013 by
Phil Kinnane
Having used COMSOL Multiphysics for over six years now, we are pleased to have Dr. Jon Ebert, Director at SC Solutions, join us in the next Mechanical Engineering Magazine Webinar Series titled “Heat Transfer in Solid and Fluids”. On March 7th, he will co-host an instructional webinar together with COMSOL’s John Dunec. Dr. Ebert will discuss SC Solution’s simulation activities within a wide span of heat transfer-related applications, particularly with respect to semiconductor manufacturing. As a long-time user of COMSOL Multiphysics, this promises to be an interesting relation of his experiences using COMSOL for heat transfer applications.
Read more on: Long-time Multiphysics User on COMSOL for Heat Transfer
Heat Transfer | Posted on
February 18th, 2013 by
Andrew Griesmer
Induction occurs when a metal object moves in the presence of a magnetic field inducing a current in that object. The induced current causes it to heat up (called inductive heating), as all current does. Yet, simulating these two coupled physics together can be difficult to do as they are intrinsically based on different time scales. COMSOL Multiphysics is able to cleverly simulate them through combining the frequency domain modeling of the magnetic field with a stationary simulation of the heat transfer, using its Inductive Heating interface. Since actions speak louder than words, we have included a video tutorial of this interaction for your viewing.
Read more on: Inductive Heating of a Billet Simulation Tutorial
Electrical | Posted on
January 31st, 2013 by
Fanny Littmarck
Transformers are used to increase the voltage of an alternating current (AC) before moving it along the power grid via power lines. Since power lines lose energy through heating cased by electric currents, you can achieve more economical power transmission by transforming to a high voltage and low current. As a matter of fact, high voltage (HV) power transmission lines transmit portions of its power in the air surrounding it. Furthermore, as the current travels long distances through many transformer stages, small design-changes in transformers can have very large effects in overall power transmission. To show you how these design improvements can be made, we’re holding a webinar on transformer and inductor modeling together with IEEE Spectrum on February 7th.
Read more on: Webinar: Transformer and Inductor Modeling
Chemical | Posted on
January 21st, 2013 by
Fanny Littmarck
On Friday I wrote about designing safer lithium-ion batteries, and showed you a few resources for helping people do just that. Now I’d like to show you a lithium-ion battery model and briefly run through how it can be created in COMSOL Multiphysics in three sequential studies.
Read more on: Lithium-Ion Battery Model
Chemical | Posted on
January 18th, 2013 by
Fanny Littmarck
Unless you live under a rock, you’ll have heard lithium-ion batteries mentioned a lot lately. Last week in Boston, a lithium-ion battery caught fire in the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, forcing them to ground all Dreamliner planes until further notice. This type of battery makes it possible to pack lots of power into a small package. What can be done to make it operate safely?
Read more on: Designing a Safer Lithium-Ion Battery
Heat Transfer | Posted on
January 10th, 2013 by
Fanny Littmarck
Nanorods are synthetic nanoscale objects used in the area of nanotechnology. They can be synthesized from semiconducting materials or metals, such as gold. The applications of nanorods are many, ranging from display technologies and energy harvesting to cancer therapy.
Read more on: Gold Nanorods for Medical Treatment
