I understand that you are trying to reset the temperature of a Simscape “Thermal Mass” block at a specific time in order to simulate the introduction of a new hot pipe. At the moment, the “Thermal Mass” block does not provide a direct way to reset its internal temperature state. However, this behavior you can achieve by adding auxiliary Simscape components or by defining some custom block.
When I tested a scenario similar to yours, I found that the most simplest approach is to use an “Ideal Heat Flow Source” driven by a Simulink signal. This will allow you to inject or remove the required amount of heat to bring the “Thermal Mass” to the desired temperature whenever the reset time is reached.
Kindly refer to the following implementation:
% Parameters:
% Cth - Thermal mass heat capacity [J/K]
% Treset - Desired reset temperature [K]
% Tcurr - Measured temperature [K] (via Temperature Sensor)
% Heat flow needed to reset
Q = (Treset - Tcurr) * Cth * (time >= something);
In this setup:
- We will use “Temperature Sensor” to measure the current block temperature.
- The signal “Q” is fed into the “Ideal Heat Flow Source”, which connects to the “Thermal Mass”.
- The conditional (“time >= 50”) will make sure that the reset occurs only at the specified simulation time.
Alternatively, if you prefer a reusable solution, you may implement a custom Simscape component where the block accepts a “resetTrigger” and “Treset” input. Whenever the trigger is active, the block enforces the specified temperature, otherwise it behaves like a standard "Thermal Mass".
For further reference on modeling with Simscape custom components, please see the following documentation:
Cheers & Happy Modeling!
