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Ansys Discovery Simulation: Multiphysics Simulation of Thermofluid Systems

Written by German Ibarra | Aug 29, 2025 8:49:50 PM

Transform your consumer goods with the power of Ansys Discovery Simulation, mastering the complexities of thermofluid systems to deliver superior performance and innovation.

Challenges

Companies without simulation capabilities face major obstacles when developing competitive thermofluid products in industries like consumer goods and food production. Without access to simulation, engineers must rely on physical prototyping and testing to understand heat transfer and thermal performance—a process that is both time-consuming and costly.

This often results in multiple design iterations, longer development cycles, and the late discovery of critical flaws. In industries where thermal uniformity and energy efficiency are essential, not being able to predict thermal behavior before building prototypes can lead to products that fall short of market expectations.

Simulation is always a valuable tool in engineering design. Traditional CFD provides the high accuracy needed to validate and fine-tune designs, especially when performance margins are tight or regulatory compliance is required. However, relying solely on these tools can slow down the early stages of development, where speed and flexibility are crucial.

This is where rapid simulation tools like Ansys Discovery can make a significant difference. By allowing engineers to quickly explore multiple design options, identify poor-performing concepts, and iterate early on, Discovery helps teams focus their efforts on the most promising ideas. When used alongside traditional CFD, rapid simulation doesn’t replace accuracy—it complements it. Together, they enable a design process that is both fast and reliable, leading to better products, shorter development cycles, and more innovation.

 

Engineering Solutions

Methods

Thermofluid systems are integral to many consumer goods, from household appliances to high-performance electronics. The design of these systems involves intricate considerations of heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and material properties. Ansys Discovery Simulation simplifies this complexity by providing a comprehensive suite of tools that allow engineers to visualize and optimize these interactions in real-time. This is intended for designers in the initial stages of the process (Upfront Simulation).  

Results

With its intuitive user interface and powerful computational capabilities, Ansys Discovery Simulation enables rapid prototyping and iterative testing. Engineers can quickly assess the impact of design changes on system performance, reducing the time and cost associated with physical prototyping. This accelerates the development cycle and ensures that the final product is both innovative and robust. The following is an example of a conjugate heat transfer simulation with radiation. In the Explore mode, Discovery provides results in a couple of minutes.

Example

This case involves an oven with two heat sources. The model shows how fluid and solid domains interact to produce temperature distributions and flow patterns that help evaluate the system’s performance. Not all solid bodies need to be included. The simulation focuses on the fluid domain and the solid parts inside it, while the outer surfaces are treated with convection and radiation boundary conditions.

  • Materials. The database offers different options for fluids and solids, and it’s also possible to create user-defined materials by specifying their properties. Another option is to connect with Granta MDS (Materials Data for Simulation). In this case, the solid materials are defined by density, specific heat, and thermal conductivity, while the fluid material (air) is defined by density, viscosity, thermal expansion coefficient, thermal conductivity, and specific heat.

  • Boundary Conditions. This simulation is a thermofluid application, where air enters and leaves the domain, while the heat sources provide energy to the system, having the three mechanisms of heat transfer. The boundary conditions shown below are: 1) gravity, 2) heat sources, 3) inlet and outlet air flows, 4) convection with internal/external radiation, 5) insulation, 6) convection. 

  • Results. The temperature distribution on the solid bodies is shown below. Users can add monitors to track the temperature of individual faces, groups of faces, or entire bodies. These monitors can then be used as output variables to evaluate the oven’s design and operating conditions. In this example, the temperature ranges between 70.7 and 106 °C. With just a simple adjustment to a boundary condition, the designer can rerun the model and immediately explore how the results change using the same monitors. The main scale can also be adjusted to highlight the range of interest.

    Similarly, the airflow patterns can be captured by the solver and presented using streamlines, vectors, and particle flow. The latter is used here to demonstrate a new capability in Ansys Discovery: multiple injection points. Different locations can be defined across the domain to release tracking particles that follow the airflow and reveal flow patterns and temperatures. In the video, these particles are released from five injection points at the air intake. This approach provides a clear and intuitive way to visualize how air moves and interacts within the bodies in the domain.
  •  Convergence. In Explore mode, Ansys Discovery provides the option to balance the accuracy of results with the solution time. In essence, accuracy is governed by the level of mesh refinement. Users should pay close attention to cell size when solving the model, as the mesh must properly capture geometric details where boundary conditions are applied. The table below presents results for different mesh refinement levels.

 

Ansys Solution Benefits

Ansys Discovery is an interactive simulation platform that transforms how engineers design and analyze products. It combines 3D modeling with real-time physics simulation, making it possible to create, test, and refine designs in one continuous workflow. With support for structural, thermal, fluid, and electromagnetic analyses, Discovery helps engineers explore multiple design variations quickly and make confident, data-driven decisions. Its three modes—Model, Explore, and Refine—guide users from concept creation to high-fidelity simulation with Ansys Mechanical and Fluent solvers.

Recent updates make Discovery even more powerful for design exploration and optimization. Parametric studies can now be automated to test a wide range of configurations efficiently, while cloud-based burst computing enables thousands of GPU simulations in minutes. In addition, the new optiSLang Add-in integrates optimization and advanced data analysis directly into Discovery, streamlining the process of finding the best design. These capabilities allow engineers to innovate faster and tackle complex challenges with greater confidence.

 

Ozen Engineering Expertise

Ozen Engineering Inc. leverages its extensive consulting expertise in CFD, FEA, optics, photonics, and electromagnetic simulations to achieve exceptional results across various engineering projects, addressing complex challenges like multiphase flows, erosion modeling, and channel flows using Ansys software.

We offer support, mentoring, and consulting services to enhance the performance and reliability of your systems. Trust our proven track record to accelerate projects, optimize performance, and deliver high-quality, cost-effective results for both new and existing water control systems. For more information, please visit https://ozeninc.com.

 

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