Product Overview

Thermal Desktop is a PC based design environment for generating thermal models of electronics and vehicles. Using Thermal Desktop, engineers can use CAD drawings either directly as a thermal model, or indirectly as scaffolding for fast "snap on" attachment of Thermal Desktop elements, surfaces, and solids. Thermal Desktop incorporates both familiar parameter based (TRASYS like) finite difference surfaces with finite elements with CAD technology to model thermal problems. Thermal Desktop develops the capacitance and conductance network for input to SINDA/FLUINT. Thermal Desktop has thermal analysis specific type of capabilities such as applying contact conductance, insulation, heat loads, and heaters. Thermal Desktop provides full design parameterization using spreadsheet-like variables and arbitrarily complex expressions as input, rather than hardwired numbers. This allows complex models to be rapidly manipulated using a few keystrokes, meaning that updating or maintaining a model is trivially easy, as is performing sensitivity studies and investigating what-if scenarios. This provides access to SINDA/FLUINT's Optimization and Reliability Engineering modules, which can be used to size components, maximize performance, find worst-case operating conditions (design cases), correlate models to test data, and even treat uncertainties statistically.Thermal Desktop is available for PC as an AutoCAD extension module. Autocad Invertor Suite is available bundled with Thermal Desktop from C&R Technologies. The following add-on modules are available to expand the capabilities of Thermal Desktop:

• RadCAD® is an optional thermal radiation analysis module for high temperature and/or vacuum applications.
• FloCAD® adds the capability of modeling flow circuits, including fans and convective heat transfer, attached directly to the surfaces and solids.

More Information

• For more in depth information please view the Introduction to Thermal Desktop
• A CAD-based Tool for FDM and FEM Radiation and Conduction Modeling
• Browse Autodesk's Web site

Thermal Desktop Features

• Thermophysical property database
• Constant and temperature dependent capacitance and conductivity
• Supports anisotropic thermal conductivity
• Ability to work in any user desired units
• Finite difference conic surfaces such as cones, cylinders, rectangles, spheres, paraboloids, polygons, ellipsoid, elliptic cone, elliptic cylinder, and offset paraboloid
• Finite difference solids such as bricks, cylinders, and spheres
• Finite elements - triangle, quadrilateral, tetrahedron, wedge, and bricks
• Edge node conics to span entire geometry of cones, cylinders, rectangles, spheres, or paraboloids
• Built-in mesher allows creation of finite elements based on AutoCAD surfaces, regions, or solids.
• Case Set Manager to take the model from geometric definition to temperatures with the click of a button without the user ever entering an editor
• Model browser that allows the user to easily locate nodes and the properties of them
• Complete geometrical post processing of thermal data - temperature, capacitance, heating rates, etc & as well as generic ASCII input
• Fully integrated with the EZ-XY® Plotting Utility
• Arbitrary nodes and conductors, including area based conductors to model convection
• Surface Insulation objects for modeling Multi Layered Insulation (MLI), foam type insulators, or ablative materials
• Heater Objects
• Super Nodes and Super Networks
• Automatic calculation of contact conductance between non aligned surfaces/edges
• Integration with SINDA/FLUINT including the Advanced Design Module
• Thermal mapping tools to map temperatures back to NASTRAN, FEMAP, ANSYS or I-deas
• Boundary Condition mapping of time- and temperature-dependent heat fluxes from CFD results to Thermal Desktop
• Traditional finite element functions such as showing free edges, merging coincident nodes, hiding interior solid faces, and surface coating capabilities
• Conductors from a single node to multiple surfaces has been added to facilitate convection modeling
• Network Element Logic
• 64-bit calculations and multi-processor support
• Tools to facilitate making movies (avi files) for post processing and viewing the spacecraft in orbit
• Thermoelectric Cooling Devices
• Extensive user comment capabilities for model documentation
• Built in natural convection correlations

CAD Model Building Technology

• Snap on model building
• Drag and Drop model editing
• Wireframe, hidden, and rendered views
• Boolean Surfaces
• Revolved Surfaces
• Extruded Surfaces
• Mirrored Surfaces
• Scaling
• Layer Management
• Multiple independent port views
• User defined light sources

Import and Export Capabilities

• TRASYS import and export
• Nevada import
• IDEAS FE and FD import
• FEMAP import
• NASTRAN import
• ANSYS import
• NASTRAN and ANSYS temperature mapping export
• NASTRAN mesh export
• TSS import and export
• IGES (only with Autocad Inventor)
• STEP (only with Autocad Mechanical or Inventor)
• STEP-204 (only with Autocad Mechanical or Inventor)
• STEP-209 import and export
• STEP-TAS import and export
• Iceboard import for printed circuit board design
• SAT/ACIS import

Thermal Desktop Version 5.3

The following capabilities have been added or expanded:

General:

• AutoCAD® 2010 compatibility.
• A parabolic trough Thermal Desktop surface has been added.
• A new and improved EZXY plotter is used for X-Y plots of data vs. time.
• Register names in SINDA/FLUINT can now be 32 characters long. This means that symbol names can be 32 characters long even if the symbol is used to create a register. This also affects the heater append strings which were previously limited to 6 characters; they are now limited to 30 characters.
• Measures feature allows thermocouple devices to be added. Thermocouples interpolate the temperature of an object based on the relative location to nodes.
• Three commands have been added to Thermal > Utilities menu: toggle undo recording; save SINDA/FLUINT work directory; and search for text.
• Symbols, Case Sets, Orbits, Logic Objects, property aliases, analysis groups, and submodels (with comments) can now be imported directly from a Thermal Desktop DWG file without first being explicitly exported.
• Model Browser has been enhanced with: list by non-graphical items (e.g. - case sets, orbits, logic objects, optical properties and thermophysical properties), layers, and measures; a repositionable field separator; indications for disabled objects and network element logic; conductor and logic submodel names for subordinate items; symbol group names in list by symbols; contactor and TEC From and To areas; and rightclick contextual menus.
• Case Set Manager has been enhanced with: tree-based Case Set groups; drag-and-drop capability for reorganization; and right-click contextual menus.
• Symbol manager now has Find command to help locate symbols.
• Logic Manager has been enhanced with: tree-based organization with groups; drag-and-drop functionality; equations of motion; and time-step limits for array interpolation to avoid overstepping array points.
• Symbol usage is now checked for usage consistency. The user will be notified if symbols are used in fields or expression editors that have different units.
  

Thermal Desktop:

• Thermal submodel names up to 32 characters are now allowed. Many forms have changed to account for this. Submodel definition allows comments.
• Thermophysical properties manager has been enhanced with: resizable columns; sorting by material name or property value; and interpolation/extrapolation of temperature dependent properties to room temperature.
• Save files can be queried for: minimum and maximum temperatures and register values; heater performance; heat flow between user-specified sets of nodes; sink temperatures and corresponding conductors for subsets of nodes. Save file data can be written to text through the post processing menu.
• User-defined nodes can be provided a mass or a volume when material option is chosen.
• Heater power can be input as a flux.
• Warnings are provided when contactor From area is greater than the To area. This usually indicates a problem. Contactor form allows quick switching of From and To sets.
• NASTRAN importer has been expanded to import CTRIA6, CTRIA6*, CQUAD8, and CQUAD8* elements as well as QVOL boundary conditions.
• Solid-solid fusion capability has been added.
• User has been provided more control over contactor restarts.
• GLOBAL logic designator has been added to SINDA. The GLOBAL logic is called regardless of built submodels and is used as default for output calls.

RadCAD:

• Optical properties manager has been enhanced with: resizable columns; sorting by material name or property value; and interpolation/extrapolation of temperature dependent properties to room temperature.
• Free molecular heating has been enhanced to reference basic and Keplerian orbits with tracking and velocity vector calculation.
• Heating rates can be computed using albedo specified as a function of latitude and longitude. The calculations use a rotating planet based on the sidereal period.
• Heating rates can be computed using planetshine specified as function of latitude and longitude. The planet is not rotated with time for these calculations. The data may be input as a temperature or a flux, and may be input relative to the planet’s latitude and longitude coordinate system, or a coordinate system constructed about the sub-solar point.
• Diffuse Sky Solar and Diffuse Sky IR sources have been added to the Planetary heating environment.
• Latitude and longitude dependent albedo and planetshine data can be displayed in color on the planet when in orbit mode. An orbit data color bar is displayed, and may be edited similarly to other post processing color bars.
• Output and case set names can be added to RadCAD dataset name.
• An optical property summary has been added to the *.k and *.hra files.

FloCAD:

• Fluid submodel names up to 32 characters are now allowed. Many forms have changed to account for this.
• FloCAD MACRO algorithm has been improved to work with SINDA/FLUINT improvements.
• Twin ties are now supported.
• Pipes have been improved to support: twin lumps and twin ties; changes to subdivisions in multi-edit mode; specification of length subdivision using a symbol; and two materials in the pipe wall (divided radially).
• Friction factors can be augmented from heat transfer and heat transfer multipliers can be based on friction, curves and entrances.

Minimum System Requirements

• XP Pro (SP2 or newer), Vista Pro or Home, Windows 7

• AutoCAD 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, or 2010
  • 64 Bit Versions: AutoCAD 2008, 2009, or 2010

• Memory: 1 GB Minimum for XP, 2 GB for Vista or Windows 7

• Display resolution: 1024x768 minimum, 1280x1024 or finer recommended