Simulation of a set of large‐size thermal enclosures by a substructured reduced‐order model

Abstract

In the context of simulations of coupled thermal enclosures, we present here a substructuring technique adapted to the amalgam reduced‐order modal model (AROMM). This technique consists of splitting the geometry into different zones. A modal model is then applied to each zone, and the coupling of the resulting models is performed via a thermal contact resistance. This technique allows the consideration of physical thermal resistances between different components of the geometry, as well as the making of fictitious cuts within a continuous domain, when its large size causes difficulties in obtaining the global reduced model. Applied to the simulation of a simplified component of a liquefied natural gas carrier, the use of a substructured model with 200 modes allows an access to the whole temperature field with a maximum difference near 1 K and an average difference of the order of 0.2 K, compared with a conventional Lagrange finite‐element model of shell type, which requires 60 times longer calculation.