NAFEMS India Regional Conference on

Engineering Modelling, Analysis, Simulation and 3D-Printing

(NIRC-2018)
20 – 21 July 2018, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

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Numerical performance evaluation of different coupling
approaches for Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis
Sourabh Shrivastava

Senior Application Engineer, ANSYS, Pune

sourabh.shrivastava@ansys.com

Abstract

Transient CFD simulations for systems involving both solid and fluid domains to predict heat transfer and hence
derive required design changes, is always challenging. Significantly different thermal inertias of fluids and solids
demand order-of-magnitude different temporal resolution for ‘accurate and computationally efficient’ prediction
of system-performance.

So-called loosely-coupled approach is widely used to solve such problems. This involves solving fluid and solid
zones separately and then connecting the two systems with the help of boundary conditions. This paper explores
different ‘approaches’ for coupling fluid-solid systems within loosely coupled framework. Relative performances
of these approaches are evaluated based on factors like stability and convergence pattern. Whereas accuracy is
tested against results obtained from fully-coupled transient simulation.

One new HTC based approach, which uses HTC derived from two-reference-temperatures, is proposed and
evaluated for performance as a part of this work. Numerical evaluations performed in this work revealed the
improved efficiency and stability of this approach compare to conventional methods within loosely coupled
framework. This work can act as a good reference for Simulation Engineers to decide the correct loosely-couple
approach for their workflow

Keywords:CHT, CFD, Different Thermal Inertias, HTC, Loosely Coupled Approach, De-
coupled CHT approach

1 Introduction

Since the onset of conjugate heat-transfer analysis [1], this remains an active area for researchers.
Question of how to efficient handle time-scale disparity between phenomena of fluid flow and heat-
transfer through solids, for an industrial problem, continues to puzzle researches and engineers alike.
Almost all engineering components undergoing heat-transfer needs accurate methods to predict
temperature distribution. Over time various methods have been evaluated, like modifying discretization
schemes [2], making assumptions on thermal inertias of solids or quasi steady assumption for fluid flow
[3,4,5,6], etc. But unfortunately, none of the methods can be universally used to solve all sets of CHT
problems.

Understanding of temperature distribution within solid components running at a given operating-

condition is a pre-requisite to solve complex engineering design problems like, component’s life
undergoing a given operation-cycle. Thermal state during an operating condition can be a steady or
cyclic/pseudo steady condition. To predict temperature distribution for such conditions mainly two
methods are widely used in CFD simulations, namely: (a). artificially ‘decreasing thermal-inertia’ or
‘increasing thermal diffusivity’ of solids, and (b) loosely-coupled approach.
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Various papers have been published in past that uses one or the other approaches of loosely-coupled
framework [5,6,8]. But none of the published work, has emphasized on relative convergence
characteristics of different approaches.

This paper explores different approaches within loosely-coupled framework and evaluates their relative
convergence performance. A new method based on ‘HTC derived from two-reference temperature’ has
been proposed and evaluated for convergence behavior. Numerical verifications revealed this method
as the most efficient method amongst other conventional methods.

Following sections introduces different terms relevant with loosely coupled workflow. This begins with
discussion on cyclic/pseudo-cyclic operating conditions, followed by different methods to perform CHT
analysis for such conditions and hence introduction of loosely-coupled approach. Subsequent sections
describe different approaches within ‘loosely-coupled framework’ and their formulations. These are
then used in followed-up sections to define problem statement, evaluation and recommendation of most
efficient approach.

1.1 Cyclic/Pseudo Cyclic Operating Conditions

Cyclic or pseudo cycling operating condition of a system can be an outcome of external or internal
factors. External factors include, transient inlet boundary conditions, as in the case of components
connected with reciprocating IC engines. Internal factors include flow unsteadiness arising due to large
scale eddies generated in the systems.

High end CFD simulations using LES or Hybrid turbulence models helps in resolving internal
unsteadiness due to large scale eddies with greater accuracy. Such simulations highlight pseudo-cyclic
nature of systems, which otherwise tend to show steady-state results (in the absence of external factors)
when solved using RANS based models. Time-period for such simulation is usually considered as one
flow-through cycle. As this makes sure that even the largest eddies get sufficient time to travel past
complete system. A good example of area where LES/Hybrid models are extensively getting used and
highlighting pseudo-cycles nature of system is, gas-turbine combustors. Information available with
these high fidelity CFD simulations can be harnessed to predict more accurate temperature distribution
of heat-shield and casing solids. Either of the coupling methods discussed in next section, can be used
to predict temperature distribution of solid component, given the pseudo-cyclic nature of such systems.
But with the limitation of method-1 in failure to predict accurate results for internal solids undergoing
cyclic loading from fluids at different temperature (e.g. heat-shield plates), method-2 of using loosely
coupled approach becomes the recommended tool for most of the applications

1.2 Coupling Methods

A. Artificially reducing thermal inertias (or increasing thermal diffusivity) of solids to reduce physical
time required for system to reach steady state: Reduction in thermal inertia is usually performed by
decreasing the density or specific heat of solids. Another approach that falls in this category is by
using higher time-step sizes in marching energy equations is solids, while keeping smaller time-
step sizes in fluids. Since data exchange for such process still occurs at every time-step, the net
result remains like artificially increasing thermal diffusivity of solids. When this approach is applied
to a system having cyclic/pseudo cyclic behavior, time-statistics of temperature distribution in
system for final cycle (cycle at which temperature stops to show measurable variation from one
cycle to next) needs to be performed to get meaningful information.
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B. Loosely-Coupled Approach: Solving fluid and solid regions separately and then using boundary
condition profiles to exchange information between the two systems. [4,5,6]. This approach is
widely known as loosely coupled approach. Fluids domain is first run in transient mode with
assumed temperature profile and time-statistics of heat-transfer is recorded over time for the
common boundaries. This information (in the form of heat-flux or HTC and Temperature) is then
transferred to solids with the help of profiles. Simulation of solids domain is performed using
steady-state solver after applying these profiles as boundary condition. Once the solution is
converged, temperature distribution on the common walls is transferred back to Fluid system. This
process is performed in loops till cycle-to-cycle variation in solid domain temperature reaches to
value lower than defined threshold. Schematic of process is shown in Figure-1. This one loop of
running one transient simulation followed by one steady-state simulation is referred as one-stage of
coupling cycle.

Figure-1: Schematic Loosely Coupled Simulation Work-Flow

Both methods have certain advantages and disadvantages compare to each other.

Method-1 of artificially decreasing-thermal-inertia/increasing-thermal-diffusivity of solids has

advantage in terms of usability. It doesn’t require system to be split into two parts and hence avoids
complication w.r.t. to handling of boundary condition profiles. This becomes a disadvantage when
applied on larger systems, as taking meshes of both fluid and solid domain together in a simulation
makes it computationally heavy. Another disadvantage with this approach is incorrect temperature
prediction for internal solids undergoing cyclic thermal loading from fluids at different temperatures.
Higher thermal diffusivity used with this approach leads to artificially higher rate of heat-transfer
through solids and hence to incorrect results.

Method-2 of loosely coupled simulation on the other hand does not has these shortfalls and works quite
well for both internal and external solid domains undergoing cyclic loading. Also, since this method
uses fluid and solid domain separately, it works efficiently for larger systems having significantly higher
mesh count. Though one disadvantage that implicit with this method is, additional procedural
requirement to transfer boundary conditions through profiles. A scheme language based automated
workflow is developed as a part of this work to automate this process within ANSYS Fluent.
Implemented procedure takes basic inputs from user and then performs loosely coupled simulation till
the required level of accuracy is achieved.

Selection of a method for CHT simulation of a given problem can be made after considering points
mentioned above.
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1.3 Different Approaches within Loosely Coupled Framework

Within loosely coupled framework there are multiple ways of transferring thermal boundary conditions
from transient fluid-system to solid system. Whereas, thermal information from solid-system to fluid-
system is always shared in the form wall-temperature profile. Approaches to transfer thermal boundary
condition from fluids to solids system can be broadly classified into following two major categories: -

1) Using time-averaged heat flux profile

2) Using mean HTC and corresponding temperature

‘Time-average heat flux profile’ based methodology is straight forward but contains a risk of divergence
with coupling iterations and hence require under-relaxation of newly derived boundary condition before
applying on the systems [5].

Whereas, with ‘mean HTC-Temperature based approach’ care is needed to correctly extract these two
parameters to maintain energy conservation. ‘Conventional’ and newly proposed ‘two-reference-
temperatures based’ approaches to extract HTC-Temperature profiles are discussed in following
sections.

1.3.1 Time averaged HTC and derived near wall cell temperature

Calculation of time-averaged heat flux is easy to derive and implement, but care is needed while
deriving corresponding mean HTC and temperature field. Mean HTC is derived by performing time-
averaging of wall-fn HTC recorded over time, whereas two different formulation for temperature are
possible (eq. 4 and 6), as discussed below. Both predict similar results, and analysists are free to select
any one of the formulations for predicting near-wall cell temperature.

Let ‘t’ is the total simulation time, and dt1, dt2, dt3 are the three different time step sizes taken to
complete total time ‘t’. i.e. t = dt1 + dt2 + dt3

Let 𝑞1 , 𝑞2 and 𝑞3 be the corresponding fluxes in these durations, respectively. And 𝑞𝑚 represents the mean heat
flux for the total duration ‘t’

Then 𝑄 = 𝑞𝑚 × 𝑡 = 𝑞1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + 𝑞2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + 𝑞3 × 𝜕𝑡3 (eq. 1)

Using Newton’s law of cooling eq-1 expands to:-

ℎ𝑚 × (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇𝑚 ) × 𝐴 × 𝑡 = ℎ1 × (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇1 ) × 𝐴 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇2 ) × 𝐴 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇3 ) × 𝐴 ×

𝜕𝑡3

= 𝑇𝑤 (ℎ1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝜕𝑡3 ) − ((ℎ1 × 𝑇1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝑇2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝑇3 × 𝜕𝑡3 ))

((ℎ1 ×𝑇1 ×𝜕𝑡1 +ℎ2 ×𝑇2 ×𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 ×𝑇3 ×𝜕𝑡3 ))

= (ℎ1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝜕𝑡3 ) {𝑇𝑤 − (ℎ1 ×𝜕𝑡1 +ℎ2 ×𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 ×𝜕𝑡3 )
} (eq. 2)

From eq-2, expressions for mean HTC and near wall cell temperature can be derived as

ℎ𝑚 = (ℎ1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝜕𝑡3 )⁄𝑡 (eq. 3)

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𝑇𝑚 = (ℎ1 × 𝑇1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝑇2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝑇3 × 𝜕𝑡3 )⁄(ℎ1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝜕𝑡3 ) (eq. 4)

Another expression for mean temperature can be derived by taking help of calculated mean heat flux
(eq-1) as follows

𝑞𝑚 × 𝑡 = (ℎ1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝜕𝑡3 ){𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇𝑐_𝑚 }

Putting
ℎ𝑚 = (ℎ1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝜕𝑡3 )⁄𝑡 (eq. 5)
𝑇𝑐_𝑚 = 𝑇𝑤 − 𝑞𝑚 ⁄ℎ𝑚 (eq. 6)

As shown above, the two approaches have different ways of predicting effective near-wall cell
temperature, eq. 4 and 6. Expression shown in eq.4, has been used to predict mean near wall cell
temperature for validation of loosely coupled workflow in this paper.

1.3.2 Two-reference-temperature based HTC

Motivation for deriving this method was to avoid very high value of mean-wall function HTC, that may
become prominent for simulations that are performed using very fine meshes near the boundaries, i.e.
with y+~1. As this leads to slower convergence of coupled system. For simple cases this can be avoided
by using HTC derived from a reference temperature, instead to using near-wall cell temperature. In
Fluent’s terminology it is referred as ‘Surface Heat Transfer Coefficient’. This surface HTC value works
quite well for simple cases, that are either undergoing heating or cooling throughout the domain. But
using this formulation for simulations involving both heating and cooling leads to negative HTC
prediction as explained below:
Surface heat transfer coefficient ‘h’ is defined as

ℎ = 𝑞⁄(𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑓 ) , (eq. 7)

where q = total heat flux form surface (-ve for heat flux going out of domain), 𝑇𝑤 = Wall surface
temperature and 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑓 = reference temperature for HTC prediction. Refer Figure-2 for schematic
representation.

For q < 0 (heat flux going out of system) (eq. 8)

For h >=0, 𝑇𝑤 ≤ 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑓
For q > 0 (heat flux coming inside the system)
For h >=0, 𝑇𝑤 ≥ 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑓 (eq. 9)

For problems involving both heat-flux entering and exiting through some boundaries of the domain,
deriving a temperature value such that it satisfies both eq 8 and 9 becomes challenging. Especially when
wall temperature is varying along the surfaces.
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Figure-2: Dependence of HTC sign on reference temperature value. Considering a simple cylinder with local combustion
zone, set with constant temperature wall boundary condition for all walls

To overcome this problem of negative HTC values and at the same time keeping the advantage available
with surface heat transfer coefficient, a new method to predict HTC has been proposed by author and
is discussed below

Procedure to calculate two-reference-temperature based HTC: -

• Select two reference temperatures, 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 and 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓
o Where 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 > Maximum wall temperature in the system
o 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 < Minimum wall temperature in the system.
• Create functions (within Fluent use ‘Custom Field Function’) to calculate two sets of ‘Surface
HTC’ using these two reference temperatures for all the boundaries.
• Transfer the pair of ‘Surface HTC’ and ‘Tref’ that provides +ve values of HTC for the given
surfaces
Above formulation can be implemented with the help of ‘Max’ function as follows.
ℎ = Max ( ℎ 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 , ℎ 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 )
Where: ℎ 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑓 = 𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑥⁄(𝑇𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙 − 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑓 )
• For walls with ‘-ve’ total surface heat flux, that is where heat is going out of the system.
ℎ 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 > 0 and ℎ 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 <0
• For walls with ‘+ve’ total surface heat flux, that is where heat is coming into the system
ℎ 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 < 0 and ℎ 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 >0
In the absence of Max. function above formulation can be implemented as
ℎ = ( 0.5 × ( ℎ 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 + | ℎ 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 |)) + ( 0.5 × ( ℎ 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 + | ℎ 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 |)) (eq10)

Will be non-zero only when Will be non-zero only when

ℎ 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 >0 ℎ 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 >0

To get the correct reference temperature locally, which is getting used to predict positive HTC locally,
formulation mentioned in eq-10 can be further extended as follows

( 0.5 ×( ℎ𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 +| ℎ𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 |)) ( 0.5 ×( ℎ𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 +| ℎ𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 |))

𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑓 = × 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 + × 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 (eq 11)
| ℎ𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 | | ℎ𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 |

Will be 1 only when ℎ 𝑇𝑀_𝑟𝑒𝑓 >0, Will be 1 only when ℎ 𝑇𝑆_𝑟𝑒𝑓 >0,
Otherwise return ‘0’ Otherwise return ‘0’
‘Two-reference-temperatures based HTC’ approach uses HTC and Temperature derived from eq. 10
and 11 to transfer information from fluid to solid system.
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Any of the discussed approaches can be used within loosely coupled framework to derive the final
converged stage. Convergence is said to be achieved when there is no noticeable change in temperature
field, moving from one coupled stage to next-stage

2 Problem Statement

Heat transfer problem through casing of a simple pipe is considered to understand relative importance
of different approaches discussed in previous section in terms of convergence behavior and robustness.
Cyclic loading of hot and cold fluid is applied at the inlet of this pipe, replicating type of loading usually
occurs within components connected with reciprocating IC engines. Figure-3 describes the problem in
detail

Figure 3: (a). Full domain used CHT simulation. (b). Velocity profile (c) Temperature profile, applied at the inlet

Figure 4: Location of point monitors used to record variation of temperature with time

2.1 Model setup

Few important points considered while creating the benchmark model are as follows: -

1. Simulation is performed by taking the full domain, that includes fluid-flow through pipe and solid
casing of pipe. Proper boundary layered mesh is used on the fluid side
2. Conformal mesh is created for the full domain, to avoid any interpolation error that may occur
across non-conformal meshes. In addition to this, another important reason for considering such
mesh is to generate a more uniform mesh for loosely coupled simulations. As loosely coupled
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simulations are performed using profile files. Using similar mesh across connected boundaries,
between solid and fluid meshes means availability of profile data at each facet center of mesh and
hence zero interpolation error and energy conservation issues, while transferring information from
one system to another.
3. Convective boundary condition is applied on the outer boundary of casing with convection
reference temperature set to room temperature. This boundary condition implies that the accuracy
of temperature prediction on solid-casing entirely depends upon accuracy of heat-transfer prediction
between the solid and the fluid domain. Being an open system, if there is any mismatch in the heat-
transfer prediction across the common boundary, remaining heat will flow out of the domain with
flow. For this reason, final temperatures distribution calculated from ‘loosely coupled workflows’
(location points shown in Figure-4) will match with fully coupled simulations only when energy
interaction between two setups (fluid and solids) in correctly captured and conserved. In the absence
of any conservation issue, loosely coupled simulation may stabilize itself to some false state. If
similar situation gets through un-noticed while solving actual engineering problem, it may lead to
significantly wrong decisions in design changes/optimizations. To showcase condition of false
convergence an intentionally inaccurate methodology involving linear average HTC and
Temperature is also performed and reported in this work.
4. To increase the non-linearity of the problem, both velocity and temperature profiles are set as a
function of time. To make sure only the most-accurate method can predict the correct results

Solver and mesh details are described in Table -2

Turbulence Model SST-kw
Discretization Second Order Upwind Scheme
schemes
P-V Coupling PISO

Gradient Scheme Least Square Cell Based

Mesh Type Hex-sweep. Conformal Mesh between fluid and

solid domain

Table -2: Simulation settings Figure 5: Mesh

2.2 Full Coupled Simulation

Fully coupled simulation of fluid and solid domain is performed without any assumption, for
significantly large number of cycles, until the system started to show cyclic steady-state. This
behavior is observed by recording temperature at different locations along the length and radial
thickness of solid casing, with time. Point monitor locations are shown in Figure-4. Figure-6 shows
temperature variation at two monitored point with time, as shown after significant number of cycles,
system reaches to a cyclic steady state. Right-side image shows zoomed in region of the plot to
highlight the cyclic nature of temperature variation. Cycle averaged values for the last cycle (marked
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with black-box) of all the monitored locations is recorded. This data is then used to measure the
accuracy of different approaches, as described in next sections.

Cyclic average is performed

using data of last cycle

Figure 6: Temperature variation at point monitor locations p_0_1 and p_0_10 with time

2.3 Loosely Coupled Simulations

Figure-7: Domain decomposition for loosely coupled simulations

For loosely coupled simulation same domain is then split into two parts, one with solid domain (casing)
and other with fluid domain (pipe flow volume). These two parts are then used to create two separate
simulation files (figure-7), as per the pre-requisites for loosely coupled simulations. The two systems
are then coupled using different methods within loosely coupled workflow to understand the relative
performance of each approach. As already discussed all the approaches are different in method of
transferring thermal information across common boundary from transient fluid systems to solids.
Whereas, follow same method of transferring thermal information, in the form of temperature
distribution on common walls, from solids to fluids domain.
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Approaches used for evaluations are: -
Approach A-1: Heat Flux based approach
In this approach time-averaged heat-flux information is transferred from fluid domain to solids.
Approach A-2: Mean Wall Function HTC based approach
This approach follows the formulation reported under section 1.3.1 ‘Time averaged HTC and derived
near wall cell temperature’. Mean wall function HTC and corresponding temperature information for
common boundaries is transferred from fluids domain to solids.

Approach A-3: Two-reference-temperature based HTC

This approach uses formulation given in section 1.3.2 ‘Two-reference-temperature based HTC’ to
predict set of HTC and reference temperature. This information is transferred from transient fluids
simulations to solids.
Approach A-4: Linear Averaging based HTC/Temperature
This approach is intentionally created to showcase that if the basic formulation used to transfer energy
between solids and fluids does not follows energy conservation, it can lead to false convergence of
loosely coupled simulation under specific condition. For other cases it may lead to diverging solution
as well.
This is a non-conservational approach, as it does not conserve the net energy transferred along the
common walls. It performs ‘linear time-averaging of wall function HTC’ and ‘linear time-averaging of
near wall cell temperature’ and uses these values to transfer thermal information from transient fluid
systems to solids. Therefore, as per this approach
ℎ𝑚 = (ℎ1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + ℎ2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + ℎ3 × 𝜕𝑡3 )⁄𝑡

And

𝑇𝑚 = (𝑇1 × 𝜕𝑡1 + 𝑇2 × 𝜕𝑡2 + 𝑇3 × 𝜕𝑡3 )⁄𝑡

Non-conservation behavior of this formulation is because of the fact

'Time-average-Heat-Flux' ≠ 'Time-average-HTC' x ('Wall-Temperature' - 'Time-average-Cell-
Temperature')

Figure-8: Schematic of different approaches

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3 Results
3.1 Accuracy of different methods

Figure 9 shows recorded temperature at different monitored locations (shown in figure 4). Results
marked as ‘Fully Coupled’ are derived after time-averaging the recorded temperature at these location
for last cycle (time by which system has reached to cyclic steady state), as marked in figure- 6.

Figure-9: Temperature at different point monitored locations

Results from different loosely coupled approaches are also reported in the same figure. As shown, all
methods namely, A-1: Heat Flux based approach, A-2 Mean wall function HTC based approach, A-3
Two reference temperature-HTC based approach, are able to predict similar temperature at these
locations. In addition to above ‘energy-transfer’ consistent approaches, data from approach
‘inconsistent with energy conservation’, based on using simple linear average of HTC and Temperature
(A-4) is also plotted in the graph. And as discussed in previous section, this approach converges the
system to a false state. As shown in Figures-9&10-d, final reported temperature from this approach is
different from results derived from the fully coupled simulation

3.2 Rate of convergence

Figure-10, shows variation of temperatures at monitored locations with coupling stages for different
approaches. Figure-11 shows change in temperature observed after every coupled stage, with different
approaches at point monitor location near to inlet. Figure-12 shows change in average temperature of
point monitored locations with different approaches.

From results it is evident that rate of convergence follows the order A1: Heat-flux based approach > A-
3: Two reference temperature-HTC based approach > A-2 Mean wall function HTC based approach.
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a b

c d

Figure-10: Temperature variation with coupling stages with different approaches

Figure-11: Relative change in temperature with coupling stages, recorded at point monitor location near inlet, with different
approaches
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Figure-12: Relative change in average temperature at point monitored locations with coupling stages, with different
approaches

3.3 Discussion on convergence behavior

Though following observations are presented using simplified case in this paper, performance
characteristics of these approaches can be easily extended for wider applications:

Higher rate of convergence from heat-flux based method, A-1, can be attributed to the use of more
stringent boundary condition, i.e. ‘heat flux’ in this approach. This boundary condition does not put any
limit on possible temperature change, and hence shows larger change in temperature with every
coupling stage. Whereas other two approaches use HTC based methodologies, and hence bounds the
variation of temperature field by the corresponding shared temperature information, which also limits
the rate of convergence.

Stringent nature of heat-flux boundary condition is not always good and sometimes can lead to poor
performance of approach A-1. This is evident from the reported larger change in temperature at
monitored location by this approach after first stage (Figure-11 &12). Simulations of all these
approaches have same starting point, with temperature on ‘common wall’ defined as 400 K for first
transient simulation. Larger difference between temperature after first-stage and final temperature
indicates that thermal state predicted by this approach, was significantly away from converged state
compare to other approaches. This highlights the sensitivity of this approach, and hence while using
this approach initialization temperature for common-wall needs to be decided carefully to avoid
divergence. Another strategy that can be used with this approach is to underrelax the temperature profile
obtained from recent-steady-state simulation with temperature profile used in previous-transient cycle,
before applying it on the next transient simulation. i.e.
𝑛 𝑛−1 𝑛−1
𝑇𝑤𝑇𝑟𝑛 = 𝑈𝑅𝐹 × 𝑇𝑤𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 + (1 − 𝑈𝑅𝐹) × 𝑇𝑤𝑇𝑟𝑛

Where,

𝑛
𝑇𝑤𝑇𝑟𝑛 = 𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑛𝑡ℎ 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛

𝑛−1
𝑇𝑤𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 = 𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑦 − 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
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𝑛−1
𝑇𝑤𝑇𝑟𝑛 = 𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠, 𝑖. 𝑒. 𝑛 − 1𝑡ℎ 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛

Recommended value for under-relaxation is 0.5. Using the URF may slows down the convergence
behavior of approach A-1 but found to be very useful for cases where enough information is not
available to guess the initialization temperature of ‘common wall’ [5].

Figure-13: Change in temperature from first coupled stage to final converged stage, at all the monitored locations

Comparison between A-1 and A-3: -

Figure-13 shows difference in temperature values predicted at the end of first coupled state, and once
the solution reached to converged state. This shows that between approach A-1 and A-3, higher
differences are observed with approach A-1: Heat-flux based approach, whereas minimum difference
among all the approaches is observed with approach A-3: Two reference temperature-HTC based
approach. For this reason, if results are compared at the end of first coupling iterations, approach A-3
tends to provide most accurate results. Same can also be concluded from Figure-10-c, where
temperature at all the monitored locations are found to be very close to final temperature distribution
after first coupling stage

Comparison between A-2 and A-3: -

Reason for relatively better convergence behavior of approach A-3 w.r.t. to A-2 can be understood
based on two factors ‘maximum allowable wall-temperature change per-cycle’ and ‘HTC value’.
Following section describes these factors is detail: -
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Approach-2: Maximum allowable wall-temperature change per-cycle: - Approach-2, uses ‘effective
near wall cell temperature’ obtained in transient simulation (of ‘fluid-system’) with mean wall-function
HTC to transfer heat-flux information to ‘solid-system’ for simulations. In doing so it implicitly restricts
the maximum possible change of wall temperature at boundaries (on which profiles are applied) of solid
system by the transferred temperature profile (which is ‘effective near wall cell temperature’ obtained
from transient simulation). Similarly, when temperature profile derived from this solid-system is
applied to next transient simulation (fluid-system), the wall temperature limits the maximum possible
change in near-wall cell temperature, through which effective temperature is going to be derived. Thus,
this approach inherently slows down the progress of solution. If very fine boundary layered mesh
elements are used in transient simulation, Tc (cell) becomes almost equal to Tw (wall). Under such
condition, due to discussed cascading effect, rate of convergence derived from this approach becomes
undesirably slow.

Figure-14: Convergence rate with Approach-2

Approach-2: HTC value: -As this methodology uses nearest cell temperature for predicting HTC, for
mesh with very fine cells near the wall where Tc (cell) ~ Tw (wall), HTC becomes significantly high
and hence the derived mean-HTC. When this mean-HTC and ‘effective mean temperature’ profile is
applied to ‘solid-system’, higher value of HTCs forces the wall temperature at boundaries (common
boundaries) of the solid-system to reach very close to applied ‘effective temperature’ profile. In other
words, net change in temperature ∆𝑇 = 𝐴𝐵𝑆(𝑇𝑠_2 − 𝑇𝑠_1 ) , becomes significantly low.

where 𝑇𝑠_1 = Temperature applied on wall (common boundary) for the first-transient fluid simulation,
𝑇𝑠_2 = Temperature derived for the wall (common boundary) at the end of first-steady solid simulation,
which will be applied to next stage of ‘transient simulation’

As the combined system tends towards converged state, these characteristics of A-2 leads convergence
rate to become slower and slower resulting into the asymptotic behavior of the convergence curve, as
is also visible in convergence pattern of this approach in figure 11-12.

Appraoch-3: Maximum allowable wall-temperature change per-cycle: - Provides more flexible limits
for temperature field and hence more freedom for ‘common boundaries’ to reach to a more meaningful
state. This is evident from the accuracy it achieves after the first coupling stage.
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Approach-3: HTC value: - This approach predicts more reasonable value of HTC as reference
temperature is set to have reasonable value of ‘Tw – Tref’. Reasonable value of HTC avoids any
unphysical high pull of wall-temperature (‘common-boundaries’) of solid-system towards applied
temperature profile, as evident from high value of ∆𝑇1 in Figure-15. This results in reasonable change
in temperature ∆𝑇 = 𝐴𝐵𝑆(𝑇𝑠_2 − 𝑇𝑠_1 ) in every coupled stage

Figure-15: Convergence rate with A-2

4 Conclusion
To understand robustness and convergence behavior of different methodologies within loosely coupled
framework, different approaches are described and discussed in this work. Key conclusions from this
study can be summarized as follows:

All approaches based on energy conservation can predict exact temperature distribution as derived from
fully coupled simulation.

Approach with conservation flaws in formulation (A-4) could not predict correct temperature
distribution, even after complete convergence. Due to non-conservational formulation, such approaches
either do not converge or converge to incorrect state.

Rate of convergence for different schemes found to be following order: A1: Heat -flux based approach
> A-3: Two-reference-temperature based HTC approach > A-2 Mean wall function HTC based
approach

Rate of convergence is a function of both, nature of boundary condition type used for exchanging
thermal information from fluids to solids system, and flexibility provided by formulation for
temperature variation.

Based on the studies presented in this work approach A-3 (Two reference temperature-HTC based
approach) found to be most suitable for loosely coupled simulations, as this gives relatively faster
convergence w.r.t. A-2(Mean wall function HTC based approach) and at the same time implicitly
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bounds the wall-temperature field between the two reference temperature values used for calculating
HTC and hence remains more stable than A-1 under all conditions.

References
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[6] Florent Duchaine et.al “Conjugate heat transfer with Large Eddy Simulation for gas turbine
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[8] Xin, J., Shih, S., Itano, E., and Maeda, Y., “Integration of 3D Combustion Simulations and
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Acknowledgments

Author would like to thank Mr. Padmesh Mandloi and Mr. Pravin Nakod for providing their help and
suggestions during this work.