Technical Paper
Adding Heat Pipes and Coolant Loop Models to Finite Element and/or Finite Difference Thermal/Structural Models
2003-07-07
2003-01-2663
Active cooling technologies such as heat pipes, loop heat pipes (LHPs), thermosyphons, loop thermosyphons (LTSs), and pumped single- or two-phase coolant loops require specialized modeling treatment. However, these 1D ducted systems are largely overlooked in 3D thermal modeling tools. The increasing popularity of CFD and FEM models and generation of analysis data from 3D CAD data are strong trends in the thermal analysis community, but most software answering such demands has not provided linear modeling elements appropriate for the simulation of heat pipes and coolant loops. This paper describes techniques whereby CAD line-drawing methods can be used to quickly generate 1D fluid models of heat pipes and coolant loops within a 3D thermal model.