Advanced Meshing Features in AEDT Icepak
Today, I'll be discussing advanced meshing features in AEDT Icepak. Let's start with a fairly simple model: an IC package with a heat sink placed on top. We have convective cooling, meaning air is blown through the heat sink and over the IC package, convecting away the heat being conducted from the IC package.
Initial Meshing Approach
Despite the simplicity of this model, it's important to place enough mesh elements between the fins to resolve the heat sink properly. For simple geometries, you can easily use the one-click meshing approach:
- Navigate to Icepak under Simulation.
- Click on Global Mesh Settings.
- In the settings window, select a middle resolution, which we'll call Level 3 (ranging from coarse mesh Level 1 to fine mesh Level 5).
- Leave the facet level as default, which is 5 for this problem.
- Click on Generate Mesh to create a quality mesh.
This method quickly provides a high-quality first answer. The generated mesh consists of approximately 99 hex cells, offering a decent resolution.
Advanced Meshing Techniques
For more complex geometries, such as refining the heat sink region, follow these steps:
- In the model tree, mark the heat sink region.
- Right-click and assign a mesh region.
Padding Options
Padding allows you to add a percentage offset for the box wrapping around the heat sink in the x, y, and z directions. If unsure, start with Pad All Directions at 10%. Adjust padding individually for specific directions if needed.
Mesh Resolution
Currently, there are two cells across the thickness and five cells between fins. Adjust these values for better resolution.
Mesh Dependence Study
It's crucial to conduct a mesh dependence study as solutions may depend on mesh size, count, or localized/global sizes. I've linked a blog to this video, providing guidance on performing a mesh dependence study and ensuring a mesh-independent solution.
Thank you for your interest. Have a good day. Thank you for watching.
Today I'll be talking about advanced meshing features in AEDT Icepak. So let me start with this fairly simple model.
We have an IC package and on top of it we have a heat sink placed, and then there is convective cooling, by that I mean we're blowing air through this heat sink and over the IC package where we're convecting away the heat that is actually also being conducted away from the heat source that is the IC package.
So, it's a fairly simple model, but obviously we want to put enough mesh elements in between the fins, resolve the heat sink properly. This being a simple geometry, one could very easily just use the one-click meshing approach, which is under Icepak, under Simulation.
If you click on Global Mesh Settings, this window will come up with the general settings.
And here, if you were to use, let's say, a middle resolution, I'll call this level 3, going from coarse mesh level 1 to a fine mesh level 5. I would suggest starting with the mid level and then facet level you can leave it as default, which is 5 for this particular problem, and this will actually simply go ahead; if you click on generate mesh, and it will generate a pretty quality mesh as you'll be also seeing in my blog, and you know it's working on it; here you can see the progress, it's already done, it generated about 99 cells hex, and you know you can kind of see the resolution here, so it done a fairly decent job.
And then this will give us a very quick high-quality first answer, okay, so this is just using the automated one-click method, and you can see how easy it is; of course, this is simple geometry, for more complicated geometries, I want to make this heat sink region under the model tree at a finer level.
I mark these, I do a right mouse click, and then I'm going to assign a mesh region. Let's talk about padding. So padding, you can add a certain percentage of offset for our box that is going to wrap around this heat sink in x, y, and z directions.
If you don't have a good idea, I suggest going with pad all directions, similarly with maybe 10%. But at times you may want to limit the padding, maybe in the Z direction or another direction, or maybe have higher padding; then you can play around with these individual options.
Now we have two cells across the thickness, five cells in between fins, and by changing those values we can even get to a better resolution.
And you know essentially, the next steps are, we're going to talk about mesh dependence, because your solution may be dependent on your mesh size, mesh count, or you know localized mesh sizes or global sizes, so you want to do a mesh dependence study.
I have linked a blog to this video, which shows how to do it and gives you a good feel of how easy it is to do a one-click meshing or advanced meshing in AEDT Icepak, and confirm that you have a mesh-independent solution. Thank you so much for your interest. Have a good day. Thank you for watching.
