Coupled Thermal-Electrical Analysis
Joule heating arises when the energy dissipated by an electrical current flowing through a conductor is converted into thermal energy. Abaqus/Standard provides a fully coupled thermal-electrical procedure for analyzing this type of problem: the coupled thermal-electrical equations are solved simultaneously for both temperature and electrical potential at the nodes.
The capability includes the analysis of the electrical problem, the thermal problem, and the coupling between the two problems. Coupling arises from two sources: temperature-dependent electrical conductivity and internal heat generation, which is a function of the electrical current density. The thermal part of the problem can include heat conduction and heat storage (About Thermal Properties) as well as cavity radiation effects (Cavity Radiation in Abaqus/Standard). Forced convection caused by fluid flowing through the mesh is not considered.
The thermal-electrical equations are unsymmetric; therefore, the unsymmetric solver is invoked automatically if you request coupled thermal-electrical analysis. For problems where coupling between the thermal and electrical solutions is weak or where a pure electrical conduction analysis is required for the entire model, the unsymmetric terms resulting from the interfield coupling may be small or zero. In these problems you can invoke the less costly symmetric storage and solution scheme by solving the thermal and electrical equations separately. The separated technique uses the symmetric solver by default. The thermal-electrical solution schemes are discussed below.
The theoretical basis of coupled thermal-electrical analysis is described in detail in Coupled thermal-electrical analysis.