COMSOL 4.

2 Tutorial Part 2

This tutorial will guide you through the process of modifying the finished model made in
Example 1 into a time-dependant model, using a custom material.

Consider the same problem as before, where a heating wire is surrounded by a cylindrical sheath.
For this problem, we will modify the material of the sheath from copper to brass, which has a
lower heat conductivity. Now, instead of the wire being submerged in a fluid, it is left exposed to
the air. Since air has a heat conductivity of roughly 0.026 W/m-K, compared to the value of brass
which is 151 W/m-K, we know that there will be very little heat transfer between the brass and
the air. Thus, we can justify the simplifying assumption that there is no heat transferred to the air.
This sheath will continue to heat until it has reached the same temperature as the heating wire.
We wish to model this change in temperature over time. As an initial condition, we will assume
the sheath starts the simulation at a slightly cool temperature: 280K.

First, finish Example 1 from the previous tutorial.
You should have a 2D model (non-axisymmetric) of a copper block with one 400K side and
three 300K edges, and no heat sources.

Adding a New Material
Unfortunately, COMSOLs built-in material list
does not include any options for brass, so we will
have to add it ourselves as a custom material.
1. Right-click on materials and choose material.
2. Once the new material appears as part of the
tree, right click it and choose rename You
may then type in the name of the material, in
this case Brass.
3. You must now specify that the rectangle will be
made of brass, and not copper. Do this by first
selecting the material. Next, left click on the
rectangle to highlight it, then right-click to confirm the selection. It will then turn blue.
4. Now we must enter the properties of brass that we wish to use. While brass is still selected,
open up material constants here we can see that the material does not have any properties
yet. Conveniently, however, it has already told us what we need to provide in order to make
the model work.

5. We need to add the density, thermal conductivity, and heat capacity.
Enter the values shown here:



Changing the Boundary Conditions
We now need to change the boundary and initial
conditions. In part one, we had all four boundaries set
to be a specific temperature. Now, we want three of
them to be insulated, and only one side facing the
heating wire will heat up the brass.
1. Look at the options under Heat Transfer in
Solids
2. Remove the unwanted temperature
specification (the one that specifies 300K) by right-
clicking it and picking delete
3. Click on Thermal Insulation. Since we deleted the temperature specification for three
of the walls (numbered 1, 3, and 4), COMSOL no longer knows what to do with them. To
deal with this, it simply assumes we want them to be thermally insulated, and no heat will
be transferred from those sides. The bottom edge (number 2), is not assumed to be
insulated and is overridden because we still specified that it will be 400K.

There is one last thing to change: the initial values. You may have noticed that an area for
changing the initial values was present even while the model was in steady state. In steady state,
this number only dictates the initial guess that the software makes in order to calculate. In a
time-dependant model, however, this value tells what temperature the material is at time=0.
1. Click on Initial Values 1
2. Under Initial Values, change the value of T from 293.15K to the value we want the sheath to
be at t=0. In this case, it is going to be 280K.

Change the Study to be Time-Dependant
The last thing we need to do before running our
new model is to change it to be time-dependant.

1. Under Study 1, you will notice that there is
listed Step 1: Stationary. Right-click this
and pick delete.
2. Add the new time-dependant step: Right click
on Study 1, hover the mouse over Study
Steps and then select Time Dependant. This
will add the new step to your model.
When you select this new time-dependant step, you may notice the setting for adjusting the
times. Initially, it has the value range(0,0.1,1)

This indicates that it will report the temperatures at
time=0s, time=1s, and every 0.1 second in between.
We arent sure exactly how long it will take for the
brass to heat up, so well just leave it at 1 second and
see what happens.

Run the Simulation
Now its time to run the simulation. This is going to
be done in the same way we ran it before: right-click
Study 1 and pick Compute.

We can now view the results just
as we could before. You can see
that the temperature plot shows the
temperature of our model at
time=1. It looks like we havent let
the simulation run long enough to
really see it start heating up.


We can also see the line chart,
based on the cut line we made
in Tutorial 1. Look at that chart
and observe how it now shows
multiple lines. Each line
represents the temperature
profile every 0.1 seconds.

(Note: you may notice a strange
downward bump in the
temperature profile. This is
actually an error due to the way
COMSOL calculates heat
transfer, and can be fixed using
certain advanced techniques.)

Change the Time Settings
We want to see what happens after 1 second elapses, so we will change the times at which
COMSOL will calculate and report the results.
1. Select Step 1: Time Dependent under Study 1.
2. Next to the Times box, you will see this button:
3. Click this button to change the reported times. Lets change to stop time to 30 seconds. We
dont need to know the temperatures every 0.1 seconds; every second is good enough, so
lets change Step to 1.
4. Once these times are entered, click on
Replace
5. Run the simulation with these new settings.


Viewing the Results
Once the simulation is run out to t=30s, lets take a look at the temperature profiles.

Notice that although the line chart lets you see the profiles at all times at once, the colored 2D
picture can only show the temperature at a single point in time. You can change which time it is
showing by following these steps:
1. Find the section labeled Data in the center of the screen.
2. Change the drop-down box labeled time to the time you want to see.
3. Click on the Plot button, just above it.


This is pretty helpful to see what is happening, but it isnt the most user friendly way to see
exactly how the material is heating up. What we want is an animation.

1. Select the Temperature plot on the left.
2. Click on the Player button at the top of the screen.

3. Wait a moment for COMSOL to generate the animation.
4. Watch the animation. You may go back to any particular point by moving the slider bar in
the Frames section.