Simulating a battery or electronics component properly requires several
additional steps in your simulation. Unless otherwise stated, you perform each
action described here in the
Fluid Scenario Creation
app.
- Enable the energy equation
for the
steady-state steps and
transient steps in your simulation.
- Define a solid section for the
battery part in the Fluid Model Creation app. When you assign a material to the solid section, specify one that has heat conductivity and
electric conductivity
material behaviors. Both of these behaviors can be defined isotropically,
orthotropically, or anisotropically, depending on the battery design you are
simulating.
- Activate the electric
potential equation in the
solid physics. This equation specifies the
distribution of voltage through the solid section. The electric potential
equation supports three types of boundary conditions to enable you to define
electric potential: you can specify the voltage, the electric current at the
boundary, and an insulated boundary.
- If you want to investigate
cooling effects for the battery, you can also add
fan boundary conditions.
- After you complete the remaining model and scenario
tasks for your electronics simulation, request output for the electric potential and
the Ohmic volumetrics heat source in your output requests.
When the simulation results are available, you can plot contours for the
Joule heating to investigate whether the heat produced by the battery remains
within acceptable limits. Adding maxima to the same plot can also help you
check for local hot spots in a battery, which can reveal design flaws.