An approach for including heat transfer into the numerical calculation of electromagnetic multiphysics problems

As computational power and relevant literature increases, more researchers are using multiphysics simulation for their work. Numerically combining physics simulations of electromagnetic and fluid dynamics is assisted by the fact their finite difference methods both use a staggered mesh and an initialized geometry of materials [3, 1]. Major differences occur when trying to include introductory heat transfer methods such as the Energy Balance method into electromagnetic and fluid dynamic simulators. For the Energy Balance method, a node equation is made for each unknown temperature and the equation coefficients are found by consulting a look up table from literature. In this work we present a simple approach to expand upon the Energy Balance method in a way that enables easy integration with other finite difference solvers. This approach automates the creation of node equations for general material geometries and combinations of heat transfer modes.