After setting up the simulation and performing pre-run diagnostics, we can run the simulation.
To do so, click on the run button under Simulation section of the HEAT tab.
Once the simulation finishes running, results will be saved in the HEAT solver object and
the HEAT solver icon in the Objects Tree will include a small red square indicating that
results are available.
Right-click on the HEAT Solver and select "Visualize > thermal" to view the thermal
response results.
The thermal dataset has multiple results (or attributes) saved.
To view the temperature profile, select the "T" attribute from the list of attributes
in the visualizer.
To observe the simulation mesh, click the "show/hide chart setting" button to open up
the plot editor and select “mesh only” option.
You might need to zoom in using the mouse wheel to be able to see the mesh grid clearly.
The triangular mesh elements are obvious in the view.
Lets go back to the surface option to see the temperature plot.
Since the thin film thickness is very thin compared to its length, the plot aspect ratio
is not ideal for visualization.
In order to improve the visualization, select the "square" option from the "Axis scale options".
This option will change the aspect ratio of the image to make the length of the plot equal
in both axes.
From the temperature plot, we can see that the temperature of the thin film is at 400
K at the left edge as set by the fixed temperature boundary condition.
However, as we move towards the right, the convective boundary condition on the top and
bottom boundaries start to cool the film and the temperature slowly goes down reaching
the lowest value at the right edge of the thin film.
Next right-click on the temperature monitor under the HEAT solver object in the Objects
Tree and select "Visualize > temperature" to view the temperature profile along X axis
in a line plot.
The resulting plot shows that the drop in temperature along the length of the thin film
is nonlinear with the temperature dropping sharply at the beginning and then slowing
down as we move further inside the film.
This behavior is expected as heat loss due to convection is directly proportional to
the surface temperature of the thin film.
The total amount of heat loss can be viewed from the "boundaries" dataset available in
the HEAT solver object.
Right-click on the HEAT solver object and select "Visualize > boundaries".
The visualizer will show the total heat flux at each simulation boundary and their corresponding
area.
I will delete the area attributes for a better view of the heat flux values.
Heat leaving the simulation region is reported as negative and heat entering the simulation
is reported as positive.
The total amount of heat lost due to cooling at the interface between air and silicon through
convective heat transport is approximately 0.14 W which is equal to the amount of heat
entering the film from the constant temperature boundary on its left edge.
Note that these values are calculated by considering the width of the thin film as defined in the
solver settings by the normalization length parameter.