Project details & progress update

Primary Project Objectives

  • Develope a comprehensive and an optimized FEA program for heat transfer simulations in MATLAB from scratch; allowing conduction, convection and thermal expansion analysis in solids interacting with a chemically reacting/inert gas mixture as a heat source
  • Validate the MATLAB model experimentally via a custom 3D printed test rig having IR temperature sensor and laser-cut Aluminum plate, using LabVIEW for data acquisition
  • Benchmark the performance of MATLAB model against COMSOL Multiphysics simulations
  • Use Projection-based Model Order Reduction technique to optimize MATLAB model
  • Perform topology/shape/parametric optimization of plate geometry to enhance heat transfer rates

Secondary Project Objectives

  • Try using the developed MATLAB program to simulate and analyse a complex system, such as a brick stack in a thermal energy storage system
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Some encouraging results so far

Temperature distribution in Al 5052 plate using MATLAB program (left), and comparing it against COMSOL result (right)

  • Initial temperature of plate is 25 degC, and convective cooling occurs in the bottom region of plate with a heat transfer coefficient of 50 W/m2/K and a constant cooling medium temperature of 0 degC
  • Temperature distribution is shown at 180 sec., calculating it by considering a timestep of 5 sec. using implicit Euler method
  • Relative error in the temperature values at the two corners obtained using MATLAB and COMSOL is less than 5%


Edge labelling the plate geometry (for specifying boundary conditions)(left), and a mesh showing nodes subjected to convective cooling (right)

  • CAD model of plate is made in Onshape and imported in MATLAB as an STL file
  • The region of convective cooling represents the conditions in the test rig

Simulation Animation and Test Rig Setup

Cooling of a metal plate immersed partially in a cold bath


Test Rig