Is the PROE Thermal package any good?

[Tobalcane]

Hi guys/gals

I did not get any responses in the "Heat Transfer and Thermal dynamics" forum so I want to try here.

I wanted to ask if there are any ProE thermal users in this forum and if you like the package. What are the pros and cons of ProE Thermal in your application? My application would be to use it for electronic packaging from the junction temp of the device to heat sink and transient heating through the housing. Right now I am using TAS by Harvard Thermal. It is a great software, but I find my self building the model twice, once in ProE or ACAD and then in TAS. Since we have ProE, it would be nice to use the same model just like ProE Mechanica.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Go Mechanical Engineering
Tobalcane


Go Mechanical Engineering
Tobalcane

 

[SamHui]

I have used the thermal package for few years. What I can say, if you want to do some analysis in the electronic packaging, please use ansys or abaqus, not pro/e. The function in pro/e is so limited. Simple problem can use simple software

 

[RocketRonnie]

Pro/Mechanica Thermal is okay.
It can do transient thermal, but the limitations are - no radiation, boundary conditions a bit crude.
But it works and you can optimise with the results, and the thermal results can be passed thru to Structure.
In theory you can pass a temperature map from a CFD package to Mechanica, but I've never managed to do it.
Since you have ProE it would probably be worth looking at it.

Ronnie

 

[Tobalcane]

Thanks guys,
I have just started looking at it now. The one thing that I like is the fact that you can bring in the 3D solid right from ProE. It does look very simple, but most of my work is really doing conduction from the junction of the device to heat sink so that I can calculate the thermal resistance. If I do transient work, it would be to see how outside thermal influences would affect the circuit card assemblies via the housing.

Rocket Ronnie, I though I saw that there is a feature for applying radiation in ProE thermal, but I’ll look again.

Again thanks for your comments, feel free to add more.


Go Mechanical Engineering
Tobalcane

 

[SamHui]

But I know some company doing some MEMS application in the electronic compoents, they usually use abaqus, ansys, etc software, of course, one advantage, we can use the same pro/e model, instead export to other formats.

 

[PistonRod]

I use both pro/e W.F. 2.0 stucture and thermal. I have never used another thermal package so it is hard to compare. The best thing about pro mec therm is the ease of transfering solid models into it, and transfering results into structure.

Also pro mech therm not only does steady state, but also transient analysis.

I just completed a very complicated model of a cylindrical container assembly for the aluminum extrusion industry.

The customer wanted tappered heat from one end to the other of a delta t of 100 degF (725 - 825). There is also a midsection that has "spiral air cooling".

I achieved this by using (15) cartridge heaters arranged on an optimized bolt circle each designed with (3) "zones" that have different watt outputs along the length.

The container is also subject to 71,000 psi internal pressure. Therefore requiring stress analysis as well.

5 days to complete the entire design; analysis, container machining dwgs, heater design dwgs, bussbars, etc..

Mission accomplished with pro/e mech and thermal.

 

[Tobalcane]

PistonRod

Nice! Yes I do agree that one of the great features is that you can transfer in the solid Pro E model in into pro mechanica or thermal and start working vs recreating it in somebody else software. Most of my work is with electronic packaging where most of my thermal analysis is with circuit boards.


Go Mechanical Engineering
Tobalcane

 

[chinmoy123]

I found IDEAS-TMG and IDEAS-ESC to be much better than PRO-E thermal package. Its not that you will go and buy these packages as they cost a lot. TMS is for mostly radiation dependant problem and ESC for flow dependant problem. And its all tied to the IDEAS solid modeler.

 

[jdesouza]

Does anybody know how the Cosmosworks heat simulation measures up? We just purchased this package for the other features, but me may want to do circuit board thermal analysis in the near future.

 

[Guest0527211403]

You would get a better answer in forum1183

 

[Stringmaker]

I have quite a bit of experience with both Algor and Ansys and none with Mechanica. I can tell you that both of the aforementioned packages have a good thermal portion. If cost is a factor go with Algor. If not I would definitely go with Ansys. The Workbench environment lets you do almost everything that you would ever want to do for a thermal analysis, is easy to use, and integrates with Pro/E very well. Both Algor and Ansys do. I can't comment on Mechanica. Hopefully this is of some use to you.

Best,
-Brian