Conjugate Heat Transfer OpenFOAM Simulations

We're excited to announce the release of Bramble CFD's latest OpenFOAM-based workflow: Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT). This powerful new capability enables engineers to simulate complex thermal environments with greater accuracy, including engine bay thermal management, brake disc cooling, and hot exhaust gas flows.

What is Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT)?

Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) is a modelling approach that simultaneously captures heat conduction through solids and heat transfer within fluids. Unlike simpler thermal models, CHT accounts for thermal buoyancy effects, including both natural and forced convection, and the density variation of hot gases, which is essential for accurate simulation of high-temperature flow phenomena.

Moving beyond Scalar Transport

Until now, bramble users could simulate thermal effects using a simplified approach called Scalar Transport. This method is efficient and cost-effective, making it ideal for early-stage assessments of forced convection problems. However, it has key limitations:

No buoyancy effects: Natural convection flows cannot be accurately captured.
No variable density effects: Hot, low-density regions—like exhaust plumes—are not properly resolved.
Surface temperatures only: Limited insight into heat distribution within solids.

With the new CHT workflow, bramble removes these constraints, unlocking a broader range of thermal scenarios with much higher fidelity.

Streamlined post-processing, every time

As with all bramble simulations, every CHT run includes automatic post-processing, making it easy to visualise and compare results:

Temperature contours through the flowfield and solid regions
Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) maps on surfaces of interest
Animated results showing transient thermal behaviour

This consistent and accessible output helps engineers quickly understand the impact of design changes without needing to set up custom post-processing pipelines.

Complex thermal flows made easy

Creating a CHT simulation in bramble is straightforward:

Import your geometry

Set material temperatures & ambient boundary conditions

Launch the simulation

Thanks to our cloud-based platform, even large-scale CHT cases, like full-vehicle thermal analysis, can be run affordably and without the need for local HPC infrastructure.

Ready to Try It?

The new Conjugate Heat Transfer workflow is now in bramble. If you're interested in early access or would like to see a demo using your geometry, get in touch. We’d love to show you how CHT can help solve your toughest thermal challenges.