Technical Papers and Presentations

The purpose of this paper is to describe numerical electro-thermal simulations of the REMS wind sensor unit and the results obtained by using COMSOL Multiphysics. This device is a hot-film anemometer for 2D wind measurements, which does not have movable parts and is based on the air stream forced heat convection to the environment. This wind sensor works as a thermo-electrical transducer where the same equilibrium temperature is reached for every value of the wind speed, by means of a power supply modulations. Therefore, the straightforward relationship between the amount of power delivered to the unit and the wind speed can be derived as earlier presented. Detailed finite element simulations enabled us to predict the temperature distribution, recognize hot and cold spots and characterize besides the thermal profile the operating sensing magnitudes.