About Coupled Thermal-Electrical Steps

A coupled thermal-electrical step solves scenarios in which there is joule heating. Joule heating occurs when the energy dissipated by an electrical current flowing through a conductor converts to thermal energy. The response can be linear or nonlinear.

A coupled thermal-electrical step can model steady state or transient thermal responses. For a steady-state response, you can specify an initial time increment, a total time period, and a minimum and a maximum time increment. These parameters are often convenient for output identification and for specifying prescribed temperatures and heat fluxes of varying magnitudes. For a transient response, the solver integrates time using the backward Euler method (also referred to as the modified Crank-Nicholson operator) for pure conduction elements. This method is unconditionally stable for linear problems.