I am considering adding Flow Simulation to our SW suite and was wondering how well it predicts natural convection. My application is primarily finned heatsinks in various orientations. How does Flow Simulation compare to IcePak? It seems that IcePak is the defacto standard to which all electronic CFD packages are compared to.
see attached. As long as you have the right physics turned on and th mesh well resolved for what you are trying to do it works fine. The attached is a presentation that was done y myself and Bill Dz of Solidworks. In my portion I compare flow results to heat sink manufacturer supplied data for various physics and meshes.
What parameters do I need to use in natural convection?
My goal is Volume and surface Max Temperature of heatsink and I want to see how the heat is dissipating.
Can anyone help, what conditions I need to use?
I think it should be pretty simple but I cant get the results.
Thanks,
I can't vouch for finned heat sinks or IcePak in natural convection, but I did a project with a large choke (400kVA) and the measured temperatures were within 2F of the actual temperature (110F).
It might not be PCB grade results, but given the deviations between the choke model and the actual windings the choke manufacturer was shocked it was that accurate (they inquired about buying Flow but I believe they decided to just contract simulations on critical projects).