Testing the Thermoelectric Effect Interface
At any time during the implementation of a physics interface using the Physics Builder, you can launch an updated preview of the physics interface so that you can add feature nodes and check that the contents and behavior of the associated Settings windows and other functionality is as expected.
To do this select the main node for the physics interface implementation (for example, Thermoelectric Effect and then click the Show Preview button () in the Settings window toolbar (or press F8). An instance of the physics interface then displays at the bottom of the Physics Builder tree.
When you are finished, update COMSOL Multiphysics to check that the new physics interface is in the Model Wizard and that the functionality and settings are as expected.
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From the Windows menu or the Home toolbar, choose Physics Builder Manager ().
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Under Archive Browser, right-click the Development Files node () and select Add Builder File. Browse to locate ThermoelectricEffect.mphphb. Click to select it and then right-click and select Open Selected, or double-click the file to open it.
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From File menu select New ().
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Click Model Wizard ().
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Select a space dimension, 3D () for example.
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On the Select Physics page, under Heat Transfer > Thermoelectric Devices click Thermoelectric Effect (tee). Click Add.
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Click Study ().
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On the Select Study page, verify that Stationary is the only available study type under Preset Studies. Select it and click Done ().
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In the Model Builder, verify that the default nodes appear as expected and that their Settings windows contain the user inputs specified.
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Continue by building an example model (see Example Model — Thermoelectric Leg) to verify that the Thermoelectric Effect interface solves the correct equation using the correct boundary conditions and that you can plot the various physics quantities.
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Correct any errors or problems found and save the Physics Builder file again.
The Physics Builder Manager
When you have successfully created a first instance of a physics interface you can consider improvements or additions for future development. Typically you can save a model file and then reload it after updating the physics definitions to see how it behaves after applying some extensions or corrections.
The Thermoelectric Effect interface has some natural extensions:
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Adding additional boundary conditions for current input and convective cooling.
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Adding a Time Dependent study type, which requires user inputs for density and heat capacity.
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Allowing for the thermal and electric conductivities to be anisotropic.
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Making use of Material Groups in order to be able to reuse material properties from one modeling session to another.
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Using Building Blocks to make the physics interface easier to maintain and extend.
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Creating additional variables for the separate heating contributions from Thomson heating and Joule heating. These correspond to the right-hand terms in the first of the thermoelectric equations:
In other words: