Hi guys,

I am sitting with a steady state thermal analysis of a (rather complex) part made of aluminum.

The overall goal is to do a thermal expansion analysis in a static study afterwards, to see how key positions on the part moves, when it is fixated with bolts in all four corners, and heat is applied.

The aluminum part is placed on top of a flat 10 mm thick steel plate.

My problem is that when I set the 10 mm thick plate to a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius and apply 40 W of heat power to a surface on the alu part and 2 W of cooling to another surface, it seems to ignore the heat power. When I run the simulation it simply turns both parts the same color, indicating it to be 23 degrees Celsius. There is no problem when running the simulation with the alu part only, here it shows a temperature gradient as it should.

I have tried just about anything, including setting the thermal resistance, reversing the direction of the heat power, re-assembly it with new “mates” and moving the thermal loads around on the parts.

I know it might be difficult to help me out without taking a look at the model yourselves, but due to confidentiality I cannot show it.

I can however show the simulation tree.

I am quite new to SolidWorks and hoped it would be as easy to use as other CAD software.

If anyone have the slightest idea of how to fix this, I will really appreciate it.