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Heat Transfer

Solve conduction-dominant heat transfer problems with convection and radiation occurring at boundaries

Note

Domain-specific heat transfer workflow is not recommended. New features might not be compatible with the this workflow. For help migrating your existing code to the unified finite element workflow, see Migration from Domain-Specific to Unified Workflow.

In this workflow, you can only specify and store parameters belonging to thermal analysis. To store all physical parameters for structural, thermal, and electromagnetic analyses, and for ease of switching between analyses types, use Unified Modeling. For help migrating your existing code to the unified finite element workflow, see Migration from Domain-Specific to Unified Workflow.

Functions

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createpdeCreate a model
thermalPropertiesAssign thermal properties of a material for a thermal model
internalHeatSourceSpecify internal heat source for a thermal model
thermalBCSpecify boundary conditions for a thermal model
thermalICSet initial conditions or initial guess for a thermal model
solveSolve structural analysis, heat transfer, or electromagnetic analysis problem
assembleFEMatricesAssemble finite element matrices
reduceReduce structural or thermal model
reconstructSolutionRecover full-model transient solution from reduced-order model (ROM)
linearizeLinearize structural or thermal model (Since R2021b)
linearizeInputSpecify inputs to linearized model (Since R2021b)
linearizeOutputSpecify outputs of linearized model (Since R2021b)
interpolateTemperatureInterpolate temperature in thermal result at arbitrary spatial locations
evaluateTemperatureGradientEvaluate temperature gradient of thermal solution at arbitrary spatial locations
evaluateHeatFluxEvaluate heat flux of thermal solution at nodal or arbitrary spatial locations
evaluateHeatRateEvaluate integrated heat flow rate normal to specified boundary
findThermalPropertiesFind thermal material properties assigned to a geometric region
findHeatSourceFind heat source assigned to a geometric region
findThermalBCFind thermal boundary conditions assigned to a geometric region
findThermalICFind thermal initial conditions assigned to a geometric region

Objects

ThermalModelThermal model object
ReducedThermalModelReduced-order thermal model (Since R2022a)
SteadyStateThermalResultsSteady-state thermal solution and derived quantities
TransientThermalResultsTransient thermal solution and derived quantities
ModalThermalResults Modal thermal solution (Since R2022a)

Properties

ThermalMaterialAssignment PropertiesThermal material properties assignments
HeatSourceAssignment PropertiesHeat source assignments
ThermalBC PropertiesBoundary condition for thermal model
NodalThermalICs PropertiesInitial temperature at mesh nodes
GeometricThermalICs PropertiesInitial temperature over a region or region boundary
PDESolverOptions PropertiesAlgorithm options for solvers