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Thermal analysis is an important design aspect and becoming a more important component of the electric motor design process due to the push for reduced weights and costs and increased efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the accuracy of analytical thermal models depends on the accuracy of the thermal resistance computation and on the number of nodes in the equivalent thermal circuit.

In this paper, several thermal analytical models with different numbers of nodes are compared against with each other and with experimental data.

It is demonstrated that the more sophisticated and detailed model having a larger number of nodes can be used to calibrate the simpler but faster models with less nodes. The models are all for the same range of small totally enclosed non‐ventilated induction motors.

This paper shows that simplified and/or detailed analytical thermal models can be successfully used in predicting the temperature rise in small induction motors. The level of detail and accuracy of these models strongly depends on the number of nodes and how the thermal resistances are set up. The calibration process for various reduced nodal model has been successfully described. Once calibrated, the reduced node thermal models give both satisfactory accuracy and allow very fast and robust thermal calculations.

The paper aims to focus on the semiconductor temperature prediction in the multichip modules by using a simplified 1D model, easy to implement in the electronic simulation tools.

Accurate prediction of temperature variation of power semiconductor devices in power electronic circuits is important for obtaining optimum designs and estimating reliability levels. Temperature estimation of power electronic devices has generally been performed using transient thermal equivalent circuits. This paper has studied the thermal behaviour of the power modules. The study leads to correcting the junction temperature values estimated from the transient thermal impedance of each component operating alone. The corrections depend on multidimensional thermal phenomena in the structure.

The classic analysis of thermal phenomena in the multichip structures, independently of powers’ dissipated magnitude and boundary conditions, is not correct. An advanced 1D thermal model based on the finite element method is proposed. It takes into account the effect of the heat‐spreading angle of the different devices in the module.

The paper focuses on mathematical model of the thermal behaviour in the power module. The study leads to a correction of the junction temperature values estimated from the transient thermal impedance of each component given by manufacturers. The proposed model gives a good trade‐off between accuracy, efficiency and simulation cost.

This study examines the effect of temperature-dependent material models for normal-strength (NSC) and high-strength concrete (HSC) on the thermal analysis of reinforced concrete (RC) walls.

The study performs an one-at-a-time (OAT) sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of variables defining the constitutive and parametric fire models on the wall's thermal response. Moreover, it extends the sensitivity analysis to a variance-based analysis to assess the effect of constitutive model type, fire model type and constitutive model uncertainty on the RC wall's thermal response variance. The study determines the wall’s thermal behaviour reliability considering the different constitutive models and their uncertainty.

It is found that the impact of the variability in concrete’s conductivity is determined by its temperature-dependent model, which differs for NSC and HSC. Therefore, more testing and improving material modelling are needed. Furthermore, the heating rate of the fire scenario is the dominant factor in deciding fire-resistance performance because it is a causal factor for spalling in HSC walls. And finally the reliability of wall's performance decreased sharply for HSC walls due to the expected spalling of the concrete and loss of cross-section integrity.

Limited studies in the current open literature quantified the impact of constitutive models on the behaviour of RC walls. No studies have examined the effect of material models' uncertainty on wall’s response reliability under fire. Furthermore, the study's results contribute to the ongoing attempts to shape performance-based structural fire engineering.

The thermal modelling of an electrical machine is difficult because the thermal behavior depends on its geometry, the used materials and its manufacturing process. In the paper, such a thermal model is used during the sizing process by optimization of a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). This paper aims to deal with the sensitivities of thermal parameters on temperatures inside the electrical machine to allow the assessment of the influence of thermal parameters that are hard to assess.

A sensitivity analysis by Sobol indices is used to assess the sensitivities of the thermal parameters on electrical machine temperatures. As the optimization process needs fast computations, a lumped parameter thermal network (LPTN) is proposed for the thermal modelling of the machine, because of its fastness. This is also useful for the Sobol method that needs too many calls to this thermal model. This model is also used in a global model of a hybrid vehicle.

The difficulty is the thermal modelling of the machine on the validity domain of the sizing problem. The Sobol indices allow to find where a modelling effort has to be carried out.

The Sobol indices have a significant value according to the number of calls of the model and their type (first-order, total, etc.). Therefore, the quality of the thermal sensitivity analysis is a compromise between computation times and modelling accuracy.

Thermal modelling of an electrical machine in a sizing process by optimization.

The use of Sobol indices for the sensitivity analysis of the thermal parameters of an electrical machine.

A combination of highly conductive porous media and nanofluids is an efficient way for improving thermal performance of relevant applications. For precisely predicting the flow and thermal transport of nanofluids in porous media, the purpose of this paper is to explore the inter-phase coupling numerical methods.

Based on the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method, this study combines the convective flow, non-equilibrium thermal transport and phase interactions of nanofluids in porous matrix and proposes a new multi-phase LB model. The micro-scale momentum and heat interactions are especially analyzed for nanoparticles, base fluid and solid matrix. A set of three-phase LB equations for the flow/thermal coupling of base fluid, nanoparticles and solid matrix is established.

Distributions of nanoparticles, velocities for nanoparticles and the base fluid, temperatures for three phases and interaction forces are analyzed in detail. Influences of parameters on the nanofluid convection in the porous matrix are examined. Thermal resistance of nanofluid convective transport in porous structures are comprehensively discussed with the models of multi-phases. Results show that the Rayleigh number and the Darcy number have significant influences on the convective characteristics. The result with the three-phase model is mildly larger than that with the local thermal non-equilibrium model.

This paper first creates the multi-phase theoretical model for the complex coupling process of nanofluids in porous structures, which is useful for researchers and technicians in fields of thermal science and computational fluid dynamics.

This paper aims to study the performance of hydrostatic turntables by using fluid structure interaction (FSI) and thermal effect coupled model.

A novel fluid-structure-thermal coupled model is set up to study the problem. The FSI technique and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method are used by this new model, and the thermal effects are also considered. Hydrostatic turntables with different system parameters (oil supply pressure, oil recess depth and surface roughness) are studied under different working conditions (rotational speeds of turntable and exerted external loads). Performance characteristics obtained from this FSI-thermal coupled model and conventional model are presented and compared.

Theoretical predictions are in good agreement with the experimental data. The results of new FSI-thermal coupled model are more accurate than those of the old conventional model. To acquire better performance of the system, the novel FSI-thermal model becomes necessary for different hydrostatic turntable systems.

This developed model is a useful tool for studying hydrostatic turntables. To get an improved performance, a proper selection of design parameters of the system based on FSI-thermal model is essential.

Intumescent coatings are nowadays a dominant passive system used to protect structural materials in case of fire. Due to their reactive swelling behaviour, intumescent coatings are particularly complex materials to be modelled and predicted, which can be extremely useful especially for performance-based fire safety designs. In addition, many parameters influence their performance, and this challenges the definition and quantification of their material properties. Several approaches and models of various complexities are proposed in the literature, and they are reviewed and analysed in a critical literature review.

Analytical, finite-difference and finite-element methods for modelling intumescent coatings are compared, followed by the definition and quantification of the main physical, thermal, and optical properties of intumescent coatings: swelled thickness, thermal conductivity and resistance, density, specific heat capacity, and emissivity/absorptivity.

The study highlights the scarce consideration of key influencing factors on the material properties, and the tendency to simplify the problem into effective thermo-physical properties, such as effective thermal conductivity. As a conclusion, the literature review underlines the lack of homogenisation of modelling approaches and material properties, as well as the need for a universal modelling method that can generally simulate the performance of intumescent coatings, combine the large amount of published experimental data, and reliably produce fire-safe performance-based designs.

Due to their limited applicability, high complexity and little comparability, the presented literature review does not focus on analysing and comparing different multi-component models, constituted of many model-specific input parameters. On the contrary, the presented literature review compares various approaches, models and thermo-physical properties which primarily focusses on solving the heat transfer problem through swelling intumescent systems.

The presented literature review analyses and discusses the various modelling approaches to describe and predict the behaviour of swelling intumescent coatings as fire protection for structural materials. Due to the vast variety of available commercial products and potential testing conditions, these data are rarely compared and combined to achieve an overall understanding on the response of intumescent coatings as fire protection measure. The study highlights the lack of information and homogenisation of various modelling approaches, and it underlines the research needs about several aspects related to the intumescent coating behaviour modelling, also providing some useful suggestions for future studies.

The performance of thermal comfort utilising machine learning and its acceptability by students and other users at the Professor Sir Edouard Lim Fat Engineering Tower at the University of Mauritius are evaluated in this study. Students and building occupants were asked to fill out surveys on-site as data was gathered from sensors throughout the structure. The Thermal Sensation Vote (TSV) and other important data were collected through the surveys, including the effect of wind on thermal comfort. An adaptive model incorporating solar and wind effects was evaluated using multiple linear regression techniques and RStudio. Three models were used to evaluate thermal comfort, including the adaptive one. Numerous models were compared and evaluated in order to select the best one. It was found that the adaptive model (Model 1) was deemed to be the best model for its application. It was also found that Fanger's PMV/PPD (Model 2) was a very good approach to determining thermal comfort. Through thorough analysis, it was concluded that the range of air temperature and wind speed for thermal comfort was 25.830°C–28.0°C and 0.26 m/s to 0.42 m/s, respectively. In order for cities to remain secure, resilient and sustainable, it will be important to manage thermal comfort and reduce populations' exposure to heat stress (SDG 11). The achievement of income and productivity goals will be hampered if measures to protect populations from heat stress are not taken (SDG 8). Thermal regulation is also necessary for the provision of numerous health services (SDG 3).

For a lightweight and accurate description of bearing temperature, this paper aims to present an efficient semi-empirical model with oil–air two-phase flow and gray-box model.

First, the role of lubricant/coolant in bearing temperature was discussed separately, and the gray-box models on the heat convection inside a bearing cavity were also created. Next, the bearing node setting scheme was optimized. Consequently, a novel semi-empirical two-phase flow thermal grid for high-speed angular contact ball bearings was planned. With this model, the thermal network for the selected motored spindle was built, and the numerical solutions for bearing temperature rise were obtained and contrasted with the experimental values for validation. The polynomial interpolation on test data, meanwhile, was also performed to help us observe the temperature change trend. Finally, the simulations based on the current models of bearings were implemented, whose corresponding results were also compared with our research work.

The validation result indicates that the thermal prediction is more accurate and efficient when the developed semi-empirical oil–air two-phase flow model is employed to assess the thermal change of bearings. Clearly, we provide a more proper model for the thermal assessment of bearing and even spindle heating.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper introduced the oil–air separation and gray-box model for the first time to describe the heat exchange inside bearing cavities and accordingly presents an efficient semi-empirical oil–air two-phase flow model to evaluate the bearing temperature variation by using thermal network method.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-06-2023-0180/

This study aims to numerically study the buoyant convective flow of two different nanofluids in a porous annular domain. A uniformly heated inner cylinder, cooled outer cylindrical boundary and adiabatic horizontal surfaces are considered because of many industrial applications of this geometry. The analysis also addresses the comparative study of different porous media models governing fluid flow and heat transport.

The finite difference method has been used in the current simulation work to obtain the numerical solution of coupled partial differential equations. In particular, the alternating direction implicit method is used for solving transient equations, and the successive line over relaxation iterative method is used to solve time-independent equation by choosing an optimum value for relaxation parameter. Simpson’s rule is adopted to estimate average Nusselt number involving numerical integration. Various grid sensitivity checks have been performed to assess the sufficiency of grid size to obtain accurate results. In this analysis, a general porous media model has been considered, and a comparative study between three different models has been investigated.

Numerical simulations are performed for different combinations of the control parameters and interesting results are obtained. It has been found that the an increase in Darcy and Rayleigh numbers enhances the thermal transport rate and strengthens the nanofluid movement in porous annulus. Also, higher flow circulation rate and thermal transport has been detected for Darcy model as compared to non-Darcy models. Thermal mixing could be enhanced by considering a non-Darcy model.

The present results could be effectively used in many practical applications under the limiting conditions of two-dimensionality and axi-symmetry conditions. The only drawback of the current study is it does not include the three-dimensional effects.

The results could be used as a first-hand information for the design of any thermal systems. This will help the design engineer to have fewer trial-and-run cases for the new design.

A pioneering numerical investigation on the buoyant convective flow of two different nanofluids in an annular porous domain has been carried out by using a general Darcy–Brinkman–Forchheimer model to govern fluid flow in porous matrix. The results obtained from current investigation are novel and original, with numerous practical applications of nanofluid saturated porous annular enclosure in the modern industry.