KR111: When using planar conduction, which temperatures should be displayed on the boundary walls?


When one is using planar conduction (sometimes called in-plane conduction or shell-element conduction) to account for both in-plane and normal heat conduction on boundary walls, you need to be aware of the different temperatures that can be displayed on those surfaces.

When planar conduction is activated on a boundary wall (wall with fluid cells on only one side of it), FLUENT internally grows one layer of prism away from the adjacent fluid zone. The newly created cell zone is by default a solid type and is called "conduction zone". In addition to the nodes on the boundary wall, a new set of nodes are created for the outer surface of this prism layer. One should avoid reporting node values of static temperature on that boundary wall because it is associated with nodes on the inner surface as well as the additional nodes of the outer surface. If one is interested in temperature on the face adjacent to the fluid cells, Wall Temperature (outer surface) without node values, found under the `Temperature" category, should be used. Wall temperature (outer surface) without node values takes the stored boundary value or face center value adjacent to the fluid cell to be displayed.

If one is interested in the temperature at the center of the conduction zone, then Wall Temperature (inner surface) should be used. This is also found under the "Temperature" category. Wall Temperature (inner surface) reports the cell center value of the conduction zone or prism layer.

If one is interested in the adjacent fluid cell temperature then Static Temperature without node values should be used. It reports the stored adjacent fluid cell temperatures.





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