How to simulate the conductive heat transfer due to the pipe wall thickness using the Pipe (TL) block from the Simscape Fluids library?

Hi,

I am trying to simulate a fluid flowing through a pipe with external heat sources and I would also like to include the conduction due to the pipe wall's thickness in the calculations. Could anyone help me with this? This is what I initially tried to do but I don't think it is enough to represent it.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration.

Answer 1

[Yifeng Tang]

You are VERY close.

Try either of the following, depending on what type of heat source your have:

[Joao Victor]

Hi @Yifeng Tang,

Thank you very much for your prompt feedback! I've somehow and very unfortunately missed it and I apologize for the late reply.

Could you please explain what each of the two different conductive heat transfer elements mean at the right-hand side picture?

My confusion is related to the example that is provided by MathWorks where the split the conduction heat transfer through two conductive terms each containing half of the thickness, as shown in the image below:

Would you be able to explain why do we have to split it onto two different conductive terms?

Thank you again and have a great day!

Kind regards,

Victor.

[Yifeng Tang]

Since Simscape blocks are "lump" models, having two conductive components and one thermal mass is a more accurate way to represent the temperature differences at the two sides of a wall and the wall itself, as a lump mass. This way, you can have a hot temp on the left, cold on the right, and a "warm" wall in the middle.

All this was assuming the thermal mass of the wall/roof/window is important enough to be modeled. If for your application you believe it's OK to ignore the thermal mass, you can use just one conductive element to represent the component.

[Joao Victor]

Thank you very much once again for the prompt and detailed feedback, it is clear now! I hope this explanation will be useful for other users too! :)