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SimFlow

https://help.sim-flow.com/tutorials/electronics-cooling

Overall: Step-by-step CHT tutorial from SimFlow (an OpenFOAM GUI wrapper) — a full electronics-cooling case study (CPU-on-board, Joule-heating source, forced-air convection, optional S2S radiation), from STL import through mesh setup, solver configuration, and ParaView postprocessing. Solid, practical, product-specific tutorial.

Video ideas:

  • Why radiation modeling matters in electronics cooling: adding surface-to-surface radiation dropped this tutorial's peak CPU temperature from 355K to 340K
  • How to set up CHT mesh regions correctly: separate solid (CPU/board) vs. fluid (air) sub-domains and the coupling interface between them
  • Converting a component power spec (e.g. 0.25W Joule heating) into a volumetric heat source (W/m³) for CFD — a common setup mistake
  • Relaxation factor tuning for CHT convergence: why solid-region enthalpy needs different relaxation (h_solid=1) than fluid momentum/pressure (U=0.4, p=0.3)
  • Temperature bounding as a convergence stabilization trick: why bounding T to a physical range (290–600K) helps CHT solvers converge
  • Turbulence model selection for electronics cooling flows: when Realizable k-epsilon is appropriate vs. alternatives

Feature gaps:

  • Surface-to-surface (S2S) radiation coupled with CHT — worth checking if hcalc/solidtemp supports a radiation model at all, since this tutorial shows it materially changes peak temperature results (~5%)
  • Volumetric/internal heat source definition within a solid region (Joule heating as W/m³ over a component volume) — check whether hcalc's Level-3 solidFoam path supports user-specified internal heat generation per solid part
  • Per-sub-region mesh refinement levels (different min/max refinement for CPU vs. board vs. fan region), vs. a single global refinement policy
  • Exposed/manual relaxation-factor tuning per field (h_solid, U, p) as a user-facing knob vs. hcalc's more automatic solve settings