8.

0 THERMAL STRESS ANALYSIS From the previous sections, finite element analysis has been shown to be a valuable tool in performing thermal analyses, where the main objective has been the evaluation of thermal quantities such as temperature, heat flux and so on. However, the main role of the engineer is to ensure the ability of a component to perform without failure. Thermal stresses arising from high thermal gradients can be directly combined with mechanical stresses by the use of superposition in linear analyses, thus providing the total stress which can then be used to determine the success or otherwise of the component design. The aim, therefore, is to examine how thermal analysis and structural analyses are linked and combined to provide an overall assessment of the component. 8.1 THERMAL AND STRESS ANALYSIS MODELS In most finite element programs, no one element type is able to perform both analysis types. In ANSYS, for example, element type PLANE55 is a four noded, two dimensional, thermal solid which can allow heat conduction, convection and so on to be present in the analysis. However, it is not possible, due to the internal formulation of the element, to use PLANE55 in a stress pass. A separate structural analysis is being carried out and a suitable structural element must be employed. In this case, PLANE42 elements would be required.

Do I have to create two full input decks to carry out both analyses? Not necessarily!

The thermal analysis model can often be simpler than the structural model since geometric details do not have much influence on the thermal effects of a component. However, since small discontinuites, such as fillets, notches and corners are all stress raising features, then the structural model must reflect these details if a satisfactory assessment of the component is to be made. Therefore, it seems on balance two models should be created. One simpler model for the thermal analysis and a second, more complex model, for the stress analysis. However, it must be recalled that a thermal analysis model has only one degree of freedom per node and therefore having an unnecessarily complex thermal model is not really a serious overhead in terms of computing resources. Therefore, common practice suggests that a refined structural mesh can
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also be used for a thermal analysis without too much of a penalty. If dissimilar meshes were employed, then an interpolation routine would be required to ensure the correct temperature distribution is applied to the structural model. This process can, in some cases, be an additional source of error and should be avoided where possible.

A SIMPLE EXAMPLE - Thermal Stresses in a Thick Cylinder

The first example is that of a thick cylinder under a radial variation of temperature. A long cylinder has a steady-state temperature on the inner wall of 100o and an outer wall temperature of 0o. Using an axi-symmetric model, with a radial subdivision of elements, the basic geometry and a temperature contour plot is shown as follows, together with a graph of the radial temperature profile for the thick cylinder.

The exact solution of this problem is given by the following equation when the outside temperature is zero,
T (r ) = ln(r / ro ) Ti ln(ri / ro )

where T(r) is the temperature at radius r, and ri and ro are the inside and outside radii, with ti, as the inside wall temperature. In this case, the finite element thermal solution above is within 0.15 percent agreement with the theoretical solution.

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The finite element model for thermal stress is also one element high by ten elements through the thickness. All axial nodal displacements are fixed to simulate plain strain conditions for a long cylinder and radial expansion is free. The nodal temperatures from the heat transfer analysis are input to the stress analysis model.

Three stress graphs are shown for radial, axial and hoop stress. The radial stress is zero at the inside and outside as it should be and reaches a maximum of 2,160 psi near the inside midsurface. Since axial constraints were introduced to provide plain strain conditions. The values range from 22,700 psi compression to 3000 psi tension. The hoop stress values range from 15,600 psi compression to 10,000 psi tension. These results agree with the theoretical solution to within 1.0 percent. The main conclusion is that a one-dimensional temperature distribution can produce a three dimensional state of stress.

A MORE COMPLEX EXAMPLE - Thermal Stresses in a Rectangular Cylinder This example focusses in on the stress concentration caused by a corner as shown below.

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The boundary conditions are uniform convection on the inner and outer surface with a coefficient of 9.0BTU/(hr.in2.oF) with a fluid temperature of 200o on the inside and 0o on the outside. These conditions and geometric symmetry allow the use of a quarter model. A first finite element mesh is shown and it is noted that there has been no attempt to take account of the stress concentration at the inside corner of the section. This mesh should serve to address any local distrurbance in the temperature distribution caused by the inside corner. A contour plot of temperature is shown:

It can be seen that there is no disturbance to the temperature profile arising from the corner. For the structural analysis, the element type is changed to a 2D plane strain element and the same mesh is used. Symmetry displacement boundary conditions are introduced and the reference temperature is taken to be 0o. A contour plot of the stress in the X-direction together with a Von-Mises stress plot are shown. In these, it is clear there is significant bending occurring in the long leg, however the mesh is too coarse since more than one contour

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tranverses one single element. The Von-Mises plot does not appear to show the localised stress concentration which is expected at the corner. Since the theoretical solution is unknown, and there are obvious deficiencies with the mesh, remodelling must take place. A second mesh is shown below. The temperature distribution is almost identical to the first result with agreement to within 0.8 percent. The stress concentration is now present although not very large. The bending stresses have also reduced. Using a further refinement, with elements biased towards the stress concentration, produces results for Mesh 3 shown below. The temperature distribution results are within 0.2 percent of the previous values.

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The stress plots show a further increase in the value of the stress concentration. However, it is recalled that a sharp corner is an infinite stress raiser and some small fillet radius will be present. The bending stresses have not changed and can be deemed to have converged.

The basic conclusion here is that stress analysis models require much more refinement and investigation that thermal analysis models. This will be true in most cases due to the nature of
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the solution. Heat transfer solutions find scalar values of temperature wheras stress solutions find vector components of displacement and computes strain and stress from derivatives of this displacement vector. 8.2 THERMAL STRESS ANALYSIS IN ANSYS

In the ANSYS program, thermal stress analysis is described as a coupled-field which simply means that an interaction is taking place between two (or more) disciplines of engineering. The two methods are indirect, where two sequential analyses are carried out with the results of the first becoming the loads for the second and direct, where the element matrices and load vectors contain the necessary coupling terms. Direct methods are single pass solutions.

Thermal stress analysis is an application of the indirect method. The following figure shows the flow of data.
Result s File 1 *.RTH

Analysis 1- Thermal

Analysis 2 - St ruct ural

Result s File 2 *.RST

The thermal analysis is carried out using thermal elements. For the structural analysis, the element type must be changed to a structural element using the ETCHG command. It is noted that the mesh does not require to be regenerated. However, structural material properties EX, NUXY and now, ALPX (coefficient of thermal expansion) must be included. Thereafter, the results of the thermal analysis are read into the stress analysis using the LDREAD command. (Syntax LDREAD,TEMP,,,,file,rth - see Example).

The following represents a list of thermal elements are their structural counterparts.

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Thermal Element SOLID70 SOLID87 SOLID90 PLANE55 PLANE35 PLANE77 SHELL57 LINK32 LINK33

Structural Element SOLID45 SOLID92 SOLID95 PLANE42 PLANE2 PLANE82 SHELL63 LINK1 LINK8

So, having read in the temperatures, these can be listed using the BKLIST command if required, just to check! In addition, at this stage, all other structural loads can be applied, e.g. pressure forces, constraints and so on. Thereafter, a solution may be initiated using the SOLVE command. Postprocessing can now take place in the usual manner.

ONE FINAL EXAMPLE - The Ball Valve Consider the ball valve problem described earlier. If the fluid contained within the piping system and valve is at some elevated temperature, say 120o, with an ambient reference temperature of 20o, then it is important to assess any thermal gradients which result from the heat conduction. SOLID70 elements are used in the first pass and the inner surfaces are selected and a constant nodel temperature is applied. Thereafter, the exterior surfaces are selected and a suitable heat transfer coefficient is applied using the SFA command. It is still necessary to specify some constraint on the problem and a thermal analyis solution can be executed. At this stage, it is useful to interrogate the results file by viewing the temperature profile using PLNSOL,TEMP and checking the contours are as expected. Thereafter, the stress analysis can be carried out by re-entering PREP7, then changing the element type, etc and then processing as described earlier.

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MN

ANSYS 5.0 A FEB 1 1996 16:02:05 PLOT NO. 1 NODAL SOLUTION STEP=1 SUB =1 TIME=1 TEMP TEPC=9.084 SMN =21.361 SMX =120 21.361 32.321 43.281 54.241 65.2 76.16 87.12 98.08 109.04 120

Y Z X
MX

Model E - Thermal Analysis using SOLID 70 elements

Temperature contours resulting from the thermal analysis are shown above. Stress intensity contours are shown below for the combined analysis. It is interesting to note the levels of stress and to compare these results with the values obtained from the previous analysis which was subject to pressure loading only!
1
MX

Y Z

MN

ANSYS 5.0 A FEB 1 1996 16:17:14 PLOT NO. 5 NODAL SOLUTION STEP=1 SUB =1 TIME=1 SINT (AVG) DMX =0.200449 SMN =10.346 SMX =256.789 SMXB=322.83 10.346 37.728 65.111 92.493 119.876 147.259 174.641 202.024 229.407 256.789

Model E - Structural Analysis using SOLID 45 elements

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VALVE_E.INP (c) DHN

/PREP7 /TITLE,Model E Thermal Analysis using SOLID 70 elements C*** Define parameters cyl_ir=32.5 cyl_or=47.5 sph_ir=95 sph_or=105 r_flange=60 t_flange=20 l_overal=200 i_press=2 i_temp=120 t_amb=20 ht_coeff=80 C*** Define keypoints K,1,sph_ir K,2,sph_or K,3,0,sph_ir K,4,0,sph_or K,100 K,5,cyl_ir K,6,cyl_or KGEN,2,5,6,1,,l_overal LARC,1,3,100,sph_ir LARC,2,4,100,sph_or L,5,7 L,6,8 C*** Perform Boolean Operation keeping lines BOPTN,YES /PNUM,LINE,1 LCSL,1,3 LDEL,1,3,2 LDEL,6,7 LCSL,5,4 LDEL,1,7,6 LDEL,3,4 LCSL,2,6 LDEL,2,3 LDEL,6,7 C*** Form top Flange KGEN,2,8,8,1,(r_flange-cyl_or) KGEN,2,7,12,5,,-t_flange

L,13,14 LCSL,2,4 LDEL,2,4 C*** Define AREAS A,1,2,11,9 A,9,11,15,13 A,13,15,8,7 A,15,14,12,8 C*** Make VOLUMES K,16,,,-sph_ir LARC,1,16,100,sph_ir VDRAG,1,2,3,4,,,15 C*** Select ELEM type and size ET,1,70 ESIZE,10 VMESH,ALL WAVES SAVE FINI /SOLUT ANTYPE,STAT C*** Apply symmetry conditions NSEL,R,LOC,X,0 DSYM,SYMM,X NALL NSEL,R,LOC,Y,0 DSYM,SYMM,Y NALL NSEL,R,LOC,Z,0 DSYM,SYMM,Z NALL c*** DON'T FORGET MATERIAL PROPERTIES FOR STEEL c*** MP,EX,1,207000 c*** MP,NUXY,1,0.3 MP,KXX,1,240 C*** Select inner heated surfaces and applied nodal temps ASEL,R,AREA,,8,16,4 NAREA,1 D,ALL,TEMP,i_temp NALL ARALL

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c***

Apply

Convection

to

outer

C***

Uncomment

next

few

lines

if

surfaces ASEL,R,AREA,,6,10,4 ASEL,A,AREA,,18,20 ASEL,A,AREA,,15 SFA,ALL,,CONV,HT_COEFF,t_amb SFTRAN NALL ARALL SOLVE FINI /POST1 SET,LAST /show,picse /view,1,0.5,0.5,1 PLNSOL,TEMP FINI /PREP7 /TITLE,Model E - Structural Analysis using SOLID 45 elements ETCHG MP,EX,1,207000 MP,NUXY,1,0.3 MP,ALPX,1,16E-6 SAVE FINI /SOLUT LDREAD,TEMP,,,,,FILE,RTH

internal pressure is required C*** SFA,8,1,PRES,i_press C*** SFA,12,1,PRES,i_press C*** SFA,16,1,PRES,i_press C*** SFTRAN NSEL,R,LOC,X,0 DSYM,SYMM,X NALL NSEL,R,LOC,Y,0 DSYM,SYMM,Y NALL NSEL,R,LOC,Z,0 DSYM,SYMM,Z NALL SBCTRA TREF,20 BFLIST,ALL,TEMP SOLVE FINI /POST1 SET,LAST /show,picse /view,1,0.5,0.5,1 PLNSOL,S,INT FINI

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