“Convection is the motion of the hot body itself carrying its heat with it. If by this motion it is brought near bodies colder than itself it will warm them faster than if it had not been moved nearer to them. The term convection is applied to those processes by which the diffusion of heat is rendered more rapid by the motion of the hot substance from one place to another, though the ultimate transfer of heat may still take place by conduction.” - James Clerk Maxwell ^1
In general, Heat Transfer is a process where thermal energy is transferred due to a temperature difference.
The three modes of heat transfer are: Conduction, Convection, and Radiation.
Convection from a simulation perspective is the solving of heat transfer phenomenons between 2 moving fluids. Through heat differences and gravitational forces there is a movement that needs to be taken into account. As solver for convective heat transfer, SimScale uses OpenFOAM.
The computational domain will be solved for three different fields: pressure (p), temperature (T) and velocity(U).
If you want to learn more about **Convection**, please have a look into our SimWiki.
For more interesting and related articles as well as answers to questions, go to our **SimScale SimWiki** .
^1 : “Theory of heat” by J. Clerk Maxwell - 1871