I would like to know how to make a thermal connection between two objects in a Patran/Nastran 2021 heat transfer analysis.

Thermal contact using glue and near contact is only available in SOL 400. However, you can use coupled convection in SOL 153 or SOL 159 to simulate contact, but the user has to select which face of the solid or elements and the companion regions where the contact occurs. In SOL 400, the thermal contact is based on the real gap distance and you can specify just the contact bodies, and MSC/NASTRAN will find the contact for you within these tolerance.

SOL 400 has all the thermal capabilities of SOL 153/SOL159 such as fast hemicube view factor modules ,thermal radiation, coupled advection 1D fluid stream coupled to 2D or 3D structures, transient thermal analysis with heater, thermostat controllers, and convection.

In addition, the SOL 400 has 2D thermal thick shell elements can have temperatures on top ,middle and bottom so that the user can use a shell element to have thermal gradients across the thickness. It also has composite 2D elements with multiple layers, and each layer can have thermal material properties as well as structure material. The SOL 400 also can do multi-physic from nonlinear steady state thermal coupling with nonlinear static analysis or nonlinear Transient thermal analysis coupling with nonlinear static analysis without thermal mapping into structural analysis. This means the at each increment, the temperature at node are pass to the structural analysis to compute thermal displacement automatically. In SOL 400 you can also have a coarse thermal model, and using the NASTRAN RESTART capabilities you can map the temperature into a refined structure model given a tolerance.

 

There is a thermal webinar that I gave:

You can find that at following web page.

 

 

SimAcademy Webinar: MSC Nastran Thermal Capabilities as Compared to Sinda Thermal Solver

 

 

 

https://simcompanion.hexagon.com/customers/s/article/SimAcademy-Webinar-MSC-Nastran-Thermal-Capabilities-as-Compared-to-MSC-SINDA-Thermal-Solver

 

Here is a detailed list of SOL 400 thermal capabilities spreadsheet.

Thermal contact using glue and near contact is only available in SOL 400. However, you can use coupled convection in SOL 153 or SOL 159 to simulate contact, but the user has to select which face of the solid or elements and the companion regions where the contact occurs. In SOL 400, the thermal contact is based on the real gap distance and you can specify just the contact bodies, and MSC/NASTRAN will find the contact for you within these tolerance.

SOL 400 has all the thermal capabilities of SOL 153/SOL159 such as fast hemicube view factor modules ,thermal radiation, coupled advection 1D fluid stream coupled to 2D or 3D structures, transient thermal analysis with heater, thermostat controllers, and convection.

In addition, the SOL 400 has 2D thermal thick shell elements can have temperatures on top ,middle and bottom so that the user can use a shell element to have thermal gradients across the thickness. It also has composite 2D elements with multiple layers, and each layer can have thermal material properties as well as structure material. The SOL 400 also can do multi-physic from nonlinear steady state thermal coupling with nonlinear static analysis or nonlinear Transient thermal analysis coupling with nonlinear static analysis without thermal mapping into structural analysis. This means the at each increment, the temperature at node are pass to the structural analysis to compute thermal displacement automatically. In SOL 400 you can also have a coarse thermal model, and using the NASTRAN RESTART capabilities you can map the temperature into a refined structure model given a tolerance.

 

There is a thermal webinar that I gave:

You can find that at following web page.

 

 

SimAcademy Webinar: MSC Nastran Thermal Capabilities as Compared to Sinda Thermal Solver

 

 

 

https://simcompanion.hexagon.com/customers/s/article/SimAcademy-Webinar-MSC-Nastran-Thermal-Capabilities-as-Compared-to-MSC-SINDA-Thermal-Solver

 

Here is a detailed list of SOL 400 thermal capabilities spreadsheet.