Steady-state thermal response using equivalent-circuit models from simulation data of a 2D thermal system with radiation

In this paper, we develop a methodology to obtain medium-order electrical equivalent circuits (ECs) of the thermal behavior of 2D systems with radiation. The method combines several elements: (a) The use of detailed finite-element (FE) simulations of steady-state thermal behavior; (b) graph theoretic partitioning of FE meshes to decompose the geometry at intermediate levels of detail; and (c) physically-guided estimation of the parameters of the EC. We have also implemented a viewfactor based on radiative heat transfer model by including voltage-controlled current source in equivalent circuit. In order to have a non-zero view-factor, two surfaces must "see" each other directly. The equivalent circuit is updated to represent a radiation boundary condition as voltage (i.e. temperature) controlled current source (i.e. heat source) attached at the radiation surface under consideration. The example examined in this paper is a 2-D cavity.