b'Automotive | Engineer InnovationSurface heat flux can also be exportedtemperatures generated directly in the from Simcenter Flotherm XT on aFEA tool. For situations where the cell-by-cell basis. However, thesame boundary conditions can be variation in this also makes itimposed in each, for example in problematical to transfer between toolsconduction only cases, and found the and get the same surface heat loss duethermal results to be identical. to the mesh differences. Also,Unsurprisingly, the stress results are imposing a heat source within thealso identical to within a fraction of a solid, and imposing surface heat fluxpercent. nout of it over the entire surface of the structure as a pair of boundary conditions over-constrains the problem, as the temperature field within the structure is decoupled from the ambient. Fortunately there is a much simpler solution. The most significant consideration for the finite element solution is the temperature field, as it is the change in temperature that drives the thermomechanical stress. By far the cleanest solution is to export the in-cell solid temperatures and their locations from Simcenter Flotherm XT into the FEA tool. As clean CAD geometry is also transferred from Simcenter Flotherm XT, ensuring that the model is the same in both tools, the location of these temperatures relative to the geometry is correct. While the mesh in the FEA tool is different, it has the ability to map imported temperatures onto its native mesh. The transfer is seamless. We have tested the accuracy of the imported temperature field vs.Figure 5: Simcenter Flotherm XT Results Export DialogWe find that doing the geometry creation and thermal simulation in Simcenter Flotherm XT and then transferring clean geometry and temperatures to our FEA tool to be the most efficient way to work, halving the time it takes us to do the thermomechanical simulations.George Gabriel Chiriac,Chassis & Safety Division,Continental AG55'