Solved: PCB/Electronic CFD/thermal analysis - thoughts?

GO_10898978 · ‎May 06, 2025

So, I joined a company that uses CREO 10. When I got here, I found out they also have SW Pro with SIM Pro with ECAD thermal analysis. I asked why and they stated that CREO Sim doesn't provide ECAD thermal analysis. So, I personally would rather use SW for our CAD - especially since we do the ECAD sim in SW already. Otherwise, it would be great to find a solution for CREO and move away from SW Sim. Now I know Ansys runs within CREO - but does CREO have a basic ECAD thermal simulation that is acceptable? Keep in mind money is the driving factor here - so spending 10's of thousands of dollars is not an option.

So, the process of going from CREO to SW is just painful. If CREO has a decent solution it would solve a ton of issues. Is CREO simulation - especially for ECAD that bad?

So, what does SW ECAD Sim offer - it allows for PCB board simplification allowing to input the PCB layers with copper weights - it allows for 2-R definition of electrical components - it allows for CFD analysis - even fan curves. I believe it also allows for heat pipe simulation.

I'm hoping you can offer your input/opinions. I tried searching on the nets for CREO ECAD sim - nothing came up except CREO Ansys.

Thanks

SweetPeasHub · ‎May 07, 2025

Hi,

I do not use Creo CFD so I do not know what those capabilities are. As far as I have experienced in Creo Simulate it is a very manual process for ECAD thermal. There are no idealized thermal networks so you build them with 3d layers/blocks to the chips... source heat layer and then layers to model thermal resistance to solder and to the case. Then the environment is modelled with convection coefficients (non CFD thermal boundary condition). Creo can model radiated losses and this is really important for ECAD thermal, especially for natural convection. A PCB can be modelled with a rough calculation of anisotropic thermal conductivity based on %copper but that is not going to help place traces better or optimize the layout locally. The PCB traces can be modelled as full 3D in Creo but the element counts become large with those small features. We only did this with a small board with a few components and simple traces. we manually created the 3D board designs from DXF exports out of the ECAD software. The nice thing about true ECAD thermal tools is that they usually can import the ECAD designs from ECAD software like Altium directly and have easier simplification of the PCB that still captures some PCB trace resolution but. That and some of the features like 2 or 3 node thermal idealization of microchips, capturing of chip thermal pass/fail, as well as fan and flow modelling are useful. The best thermal simulations also can refract/bend radiated thermal energy in or out through lenses which is important for example in headlight assemblies.

I would propose that if there is a more efficient way to do a rough simulation using Creo to get the design improved, it could then have a follow up with a detailed study with a better tool. This idea needs work flow efficiency gains so you would have to sell the process with the appropriate metrics/benchmarking.

The more 3D CAD and CAE tools you learn the easier it should be to work in new ones. They all have their strengths and weaknesses for capability and usability. After 29 years I certainly am a big fan of keeping as much as possible within the Creo environment!

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SweetPeasHub · ‎May 07, 2025

Hi,

I do not use Creo CFD so I do not know what those capabilities are. As far as I have experienced in Creo Simulate it is a very manual process for ECAD thermal. There are no idealized thermal networks so you build them with 3d layers/blocks to the chips... source heat layer and then layers to model thermal resistance to solder and to the case. Then the environment is modelled with convection coefficients (non CFD thermal boundary condition). Creo can model radiated losses and this is really important for ECAD thermal, especially for natural convection. A PCB can be modelled with a rough calculation of anisotropic thermal conductivity based on %copper but that is not going to help place traces better or optimize the layout locally. The PCB traces can be modelled as full 3D in Creo but the element counts become large with those small features. We only did this with a small board with a few components and simple traces. we manually created the 3D board designs from DXF exports out of the ECAD software. The nice thing about true ECAD thermal tools is that they usually can import the ECAD designs from ECAD software like Altium directly and have easier simplification of the PCB that still captures some PCB trace resolution but. That and some of the features like 2 or 3 node thermal idealization of microchips, capturing of chip thermal pass/fail, as well as fan and flow modelling are useful. The best thermal simulations also can refract/bend radiated thermal energy in or out through lenses which is important for example in headlight assemblies.

I would propose that if there is a more efficient way to do a rough simulation using Creo to get the design improved, it could then have a follow up with a detailed study with a better tool. This idea needs work flow efficiency gains so you would have to sell the process with the appropriate metrics/benchmarking.

The more 3D CAD and CAE tools you learn the easier it should be to work in new ones. They all have their strengths and weaknesses for capability and usability. After 29 years I certainly am a big fan of keeping as much as possible within the Creo environment!

GO_10898978 · ‎May 08, 2025

Thanks for response. I have attended CREO rollouts - and read the What's New. I usually don't see anything specific to PCB thermal analysis. I believe they rely on ANSYS which we can't afford. If you witnessed what we do to transfer modals into SW and do the setup you would understand why a solution for CREO is desirable. Lot's of potential for errors.

As for eCAD PCB thermal tools - yes, they are cool and useful. But us ME's want to keep the thermals to ourselves - otherwise why would be needed 🙂

cfdgeek · ‎Jun 10, 2025

Hi just give creo flow a try, it is very simple and provide more accurate results. The cost is also low. it is worth to check out webinar links to learn more. Thanks.