A Methodology for Rapid Calculation of Computational Thermal Models

Too often many heat management problems are not solved with thermal analysis because of excessive complexity, time, and cost. A method for quickly solving a sophisticated thermal/fluid system with minimal user interaction and with common desktop computer resources is presented. A desktop (Microsoft Windows™) thermal analysis package, WinTherm, consists of the Generic Processor (pre-processing software), the 3-D Thermal Model (a finite difference nodal network solver), and an Image Viewer (wireframe and animated thermal display). The theoretical basis for this thermal analysis toolkit will be discussed as well as examples of its implementation.