Getting Started Guide : Heat Transfer modeling using ANSYS FLUENT

Welcome to our online course on “Heat Transfer modeling using ANSYS FLUENT”. As you have just begun this course, here is a short document which will guide you on how to proceed with this course. This course could be typically finished in 3 weeks. Below is a week by week planner which will help you to get the best out of this course!!

If you have any queries during any of the lecture, feel free to contact me on mytutor@learncax.com. You can also schedule a live WebEx/Skype sessions with me to resolve your queries.

This is the overall plan designed based on my experience with previous students. The timelines are rough estimation about how much time is necessary for this course. This does not mean that you should complete your course in given timeline only. The idea is to get correct knowledge of the subject. So do not hesitate to modify this plan and extend the timeline if necessary. It is also assumed that you are not going to have any long break in-between the course. I also suggest you not to do this as you may need to repeat few lessons in that case.

Week 1

Following are the tasks you can try to achieve in the first week. The main objective is to get familiar with our Learning Management System (LMS) and to get and overview of what CFD is?

  • Get yourself familiar with LearnCAx LMS 
  • Read the course guide 
  • Watch & Understand the ‘Introduction to CFD’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand the ‘CFD equations and numerical solutions’ lecture videos
  • Solve the Unit Test -1 
  • Solve the Unit Test -2 

Week 2

The objective of second week of learning is to complete CFD foundation module. After completing this module you would have good understanding of CFD and three important steps in CFD viz. pre-processing, solution and post-processing. 

This week you can also keep the target of knowing more about solver i.e. ANSYS Fluent and heat transfer modeling in ANSYS Fluent. As compared to first week, these are bit heavy target to keep, but I believe that you have already accelerated your learning process.

  • Watch & Understand the ‘Finite Volume Method’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘CFD Analysis – The software perspective’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘User Interface of ANSYS FLUENT’ lecture videos
  • Watch & Understand ‘Introduction to Heat Transfer in Fluent’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘Heat Transfer modeling - Conduction and Convection’ lecture videos
  • Watch & Understand ‘Heat Transfer around a fin section’ video tutorial

Week 3

The objective of this week is to develop understanding in radiation modeling and solar load model in ANSYS Fluent. You will also get familiar with post-processing options especially used in thermal simulations. Most of the required basic learning is finished by end of Week 2. The knowledge you have till now would be sufficient to work on the assignment.

I will share problem definition and mesh files of assignments at the start of this week with you. You can spend some time to understand the assignment details and start working on it.

  • Watch & Understand ‘Radiation Modeling in Fluent’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘Solar Load Model in Fluent’ lecture videos
  • Watch & Understand ‘Post Processing of Thermal Simulations in Fluent’ lecture videos
  • Watch & Understand ‘Solar load model and solar calculator’ video tutorial
  • Complete the course assignment on ‘Heat transfer around array of heated cylinders’
  • Complete the course assignment on ‘Solar load model and solar calculator’

Course Closure

By the end of three weeks, you should submit the simulation files of assignments for evaluation. I will review the files and if needed you may need to work for some more time to do the required modification.

After completion of the review process, your course coordinator will send you the course certificate and hard copy of lecture notes. You can use these lecture notes for any further studies.