Learning Forum

[Celine Lim]

Hi all,

I am working on a project that involes using the solar load model on ANSYS Fluent, and realized a couple of limitations with the Solar Load model in Fluent. Attached below is the figure of the system im working with for referece: 

body 1: Solid outer surface, participates in solar ray tracing 

body 2: solid second layer, doesnt participate in solar ray tracing 

body 3: solid third layer, doesnt participate in solar ray tracing 

body 4: solid fourth layer, doesnt participate in solar ray tracing 

body 5: fluid body using a pipe loop with heat transfer fluid (such as water, air, etc). doesnt participate in solar ray tracing

The outer surface of body 1 would ideally receive solar radiation from the solar load model through solar ray tracing method. Then the heat would be transfered through each body listed above. The surface temeprature of body 1 is an important parameter for me in this study, where it would receive solar heat flux from the solar load model (ideally). 

While working on this problem, i quickly realize that because body 1 is a solid body, the solar load model neglects it. Hence, there is no heat transfer through the rest of the bodies in this system and the temperature of the entire system basically stays the same as the initialized temperature of 300K. 

I know that this is part of the limitation of the solar load model in ANSYS Fluent, so i am trying a workaround for this where I would implement body 1 as a shell conduction layer and have body 2 as a fluid body instead of a solid. This way, I would be able to obtain a surface temperature distribution for body 1. 

I wanted to get a second opinion on this workaround, or if there is another way where I could achieve some sort of surface temperature distribution for body 1 of this system by using solar load model as the boundary condition for it. 

Thank you for your time, Celine. 

[Essence]

Hello,

You can try to add a separate fluid zone of a very small thickness with the fluid properties equivalent to that of the adjacent solid and let solar radiaton fall to that fluid zone.