A multiscale thermal modeling approach for ballistic and diffusive heat transport in two dimensional domains

The modeling of heat transport for small length scales requires accounting for the physics of heat carrier transport such as the propagation, scattering, and relaxation of phonons. However, the models used to describe such phenomena are often too computationally expensive to model large domains where relevant system boundaries are far removed from the region where ballistic-diffusive phonon transport is dominant. To address the response of such systems to its far field thermal boundary conditions, a multiscale thermal model is needed to efficiently account for transport phenomena in each domain. In this work, a multiscale thermal modeling approach is presented where the transport of phonons is treated with a Finite Volume Discrete Ordinates Model (FVDOM) solution to the phonon Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE) which is embedded in a region treated by diffusive thermal transport. The approach shows that it is possible to create a coupled multiscale model where the boundary conditions of the FVDOM model are derived from the diffusive transport model. The limitations of the method and the key parameters for accurate modeling are investigated and discussed. The final model is used to explore the impact of the size of heat generation regions with respect to the overall domain size on the peak temperature. The results show that by using such a model it is possible to capture the ballistic-diffusive transport in pertinent areas of a domain that is mostly dominated by diffusive transport. (C) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.