A general introduction to the ColdStream workflow

Introduction

In the realm of thermal management design, efficient workflows are crucial for engineers to optimize designs, minimize material usage, and enhance overall performance. ColdStream’s workflow feature helps the engineers follow an efficient plan and design the heatsink efficiently. This documentation article provides a comprehensive guide on utilizing a workflow that begins with a base case and allows users to define new cases for thermal management design.

Example of a ColdStream workflow

Understanding the base case

The base case serves as the foundation for the rest of the workflow. This case contains the initial geometry and input parameters upon which all subsequent cases will be built. It represents an initial configuration or scenario that can be modified and optimized to meet specific requirements. It is recommended for engineers to start with the base case to analyze its performance and identify areas for improvement.

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Note

The first step of an efficient workflow is to perform a sanity check. Run a single CFD simulation in ColdStream with the base case and analyze the results.

Analyzing the base case

The base case will already highlight the current performance without any cooling structures present. The engineer will gain insights into:

• heat transfer rates, temperature distributions, and fluid flow patterns.
• potential inefficiencies or areas where optimization is required.

These insights allow the engineer to assess whether the desired targets are still feasible. For example, if the pressure drop of the base geometry is already way above the allowed constraint, a change in the setup is needed (either for different boundary conditions or a change in CAD).

Generate design options

Once the base case is analyzed and the engineer deems that the input makes sense, the next cases can be defined. By clicking on the ‘Generate design options’ button, one or more duplicates of the base case are created. These duplicates are of type ‘Standard design’, for more information about this case type, please follow this link.

These cases will generate a lot of different designs in a short time frame. As a result, the engineer gains great insights into what design change affects the performance. They are thus ideal early on in the thermal design process. It might even be that one of those early concepts already meets all the thermal requirements.

Improve the design

If none of the early design concepts are sufficient, the engineer can improve the design further. By clicking on the 'Improve the design' button, ColdStream will create a duplicate case of type 'custom design' and will populate the design domain with the selected iteration as the initial condition.

Improve the design button