Practical Heat Transfer Simulation with OpenFOAM: A Hands-On Beginner Course (Instructor-Paced)

Description

Note: This is an instructor-paced course. New sections and lessons will be released and updated every week starting from the course start date.

A beginner-friendly course designed to help you simulate heat transfer problems using OpenFOAM. You’ll learn how conduction, convection, and conjugate heat transfer are modeled in OpenFOAM through easy-to-follow lessons and demonstrations. The course walks you through thermal solvers, multi-region setups, material models, and energy equations using simplified examples. No prior CFD experience is required—perfect for engineering students and professionals starting with thermal simulations.

What You Will Learn

1. Understand the fundamentals of conduction, convection, and conjugate heat transfer (CHT).
2. Set up steady and unsteady heat conduction cases using laplacianFoam and related solvers.
3. Model convection with thermal solvers such as thermoFoam, buoyantPimpleFoam, and buoyantSimpleFoam.
4. Configure multi-region and solid–fluid coupled simulations using chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam and chtMultiRegionFoam.
5. Build and organize region-wise meshes for CHT simulations.
6. Define thermophysical models, material properties, and energy equations in OpenFOAM.
7. Apply appropriate thermal boundary conditions such as fixedTemperature, heatFlux, and convectiveHeatFlux.
8. Run coupled thermal–fluid simulations and analyze temperature fields, heat fluxes, and interface behavior.
9. Use ParaView for visualization and post-processing of temperature, flow fields, and heat transfer rates.
10. Debug and validate heat transfer simulations with best practices used in industry.

Intended Learners

This course is designed for:

1. Engineering students (Mechanical, Aerospace, Chemical, or Thermal Engineering) who want to start learning CFD and heat transfer simulations.
2. CFD beginners who want a structured introduction to thermal modeling in OpenFOAM.
3. Working engineers involved in heat exchanger design, electronics cooling, thermal management, or energy systems.
4. Researchers and graduate students working in heat transfer, multiphase systems, or computational thermodynamics.
5. OpenFOAM users who know flow solvers but want to expand into heat transfer and CHT.

No advanced CFD experience required.

Prerequisites / Must-Haves

To benefit from this course, learners should have:

Basic Knowledge

1. Fundamental understanding of heat transfer (conduction, convection basics).
2. Basic knowledge of fluid mechanics (helpful but not mandatory).
3. Familiarity with the Linux command line.

Software Requirements

1. A working installation of OpenFOAM (any recent version).
2. ParaView for visualization.
3. A Linux system (Ubuntu recommended) or Windows WSL.

System Requirements

1. At least 4–8 GB RAM and a system that can run standard CFD cases.

Mindset & Skills

1. Willingness to follow hands-on examples.
2. Curiosity to learn simulation workflows step-by-step.