Thermal material properties

You define thermal properties for materials using the options on the Thermal page of the Isotropic Material, Orthotropic Material, or Anisotropic Material dialog box. You can assign thermal materials to elements that model solid objects or structures. You can assign isotropic or orthotropic materials with thermal properties to 3D, 2D, 1D, and 0D elements. Anisotropic material can be assigned only to 3D elements.

Elements with thermal properties always model conduction. Depending on the boundary conditions you apply to those elements, the elements can also exchange heat through radiation or convection with other thermal elements or with the environment. Elements with thermal properties can also model phase change, ablation, charring, and Joule heating.

Note:

You define electrical resistivity for Joule heating for:

• Isotropic materials in the Electrical Properties group on the Electromagnetics page of the Isotropic Material dialog box.

• Orthotropic materials in the Electrical Properties group on the Electric page of the Orthotropic Material dialog box.

Supported thermal properties

Material property	Type of property	SI units	Variable with	Material type	Notes
Mass Density	Structural	Kg/m³	N/A	IsotropicOrthotropicAnisotropic	Required for transient analysesThe thermal solver supports only constant density for solid elements.When you include the SOLID MATERIAL TEMPERATURE-DEPEDENT DENSITY advanced parameter in the solution, you can specify the interpolation temperature to compute and use as a constant density from a temperature-dependent mass density table. To set an advanced parameter, see Define Advanced Parameters.
Thermal Conductivity	Thermal	W/m-K	Temperature	Required
Specific Heat	Thermal	J/Kg-K	Temperature	Required for transient analyses
Latent Heat	Thermal	J/Kg	N/A	Isotropic****Orthotropic	Required for phase change analyses
Phase Change Temperature	Thermal	K	N/A
Specific Heat above Phase Change	Thermal	J/Kg-K	N/A
Phase Change Temperature Range	Thermal	K	N/A	Used for phase change analyses
IR Scattering Coefficient	Thermal	1/m	N/A	Used for radiative absorption or scattering through a semi-transparent solid
IR Extinction Coefficient	Thermal	1/m	N/A
Solar Scattering Coefficient	Thermal	1/m	N/A
Solar Extinction Coefficient	Thermal	1/m	N/A
Electrical Resistivity	Electrical	Ω-m	Temperature	Used for electrical network analyses

How do I

Define thermo-optical properties

Model optical property degradation

Export thermo-optical properties

Import thermo-optical properties

Learn more

Thermo-optical properties

Managing thermo-optical properties

Inspecting thermo-optical properties

Modeling phase change

Look up more details

Orthotropic and anisotropic thermal conductivity

Understanding bidirectional reflectance angles

Bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDF)

Inspect Thermo-Optical Properties dialog box

Quick links

Simcenter 3D Thermal/Flow, Electronic Systems Cooling, and Space Systems Thermal boundary conditions

Thermal/Flow, Electronic Systems Cooling, and Space Systems Thermal

Command reference

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Simcenter 3D tutorials

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Thermal material properties, Simcenter 3D 2021.1 Series

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