Thermal Analysis Using KiCad

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I don’t know of a free system that includes using the copper traces in analysis, but a long time ago I used the FreeCAD StepUp workbench to convert a KiCad board design and then used FreeCAD’s other thermal analysis tools to approximate dissipation. This thread is probably what I originally found.

Kicad StepUp and FEM Thermo Mechanical Analysis

Hi, thanks to FreeCAD community, now it is possible to do some Thermal Analysis on Kicad Boards… Using kicad StepUp for the conversion from the board and the MCAD model to be analyzed, FreeCAD development release now can do a thermomechanical analysis on kicad pcb boards… here is a demo of the basics [ - YouTube] and here a result of a simulation on a quite complex board FreeCAD forum: FEM simulation results [image] [image]

For context while you search for more detailed tools, the general term involved is “Finite Element Modeling” or FEM. Unfortunately, the tools tend to be very expensive: especially if they take into account the copper thickness, width, ground plane dissipation paths, etc.