How Do I Set a Heat Source?

Date	Category
2025-06-17 15:50:52	Heat

The heat source is defined using the HeatSource object. Users can specify the volumetric heating rate, which can be uniform or spatially varying using a SpatialDataArray object. The source can be applied to any structure within the simulation domain.

In practice, one often wants to model a heater with external current applied. To model this Joule heat source, we can calculate the volumetric Joule heat generation using

\[\frac{dP}{dV} = \frac{1}{\sigma}\left(\frac{I}{w_{heater}h_{heater}}\right)^2\]

where \(\sigma\) is the electrical conductivity of the heater material, \(I\) is the applied current, and \(w_{heater}\) and \(h_{heater}\) are the width and thickness of the heater, respectively.

For more information, please check our Heat solver technical article.