I am writing to inquire if there is a way to extract the inner surface info of a deformed geometry, and build a new part which can exactly fit into the space of the deformed geometry.

I am trying to model a cylindrical tank with fillers (e.g., sand) using the coupled temperature-displacement approach for thermomechanical stress analysis during the heating/cooling cycle (i.e., thermal ratcheting).

The model, solely composed of tank shell, is being heated from 399 ºF to 579 ºF. The result shows that the cylindrical tank shape at 399 ºF (top-left) expanded across the tank wall and a bit buckled towards the bottom of the tank (both top-right and bottom-right).

For now, I would like to fill this deformed tank with a continuum part (without a gap between the tank and the continuum part), and cool down this model from 579 ºF to 399 ºF. To this end, I created a new model and imported the deformed tank geometry at 579 ºF from the previous model. But I am having trouble making a part which would be exactly the same shape as the inner surface of the deformed tank (like a plaster mold casting (bottom-left).

I looked around the ABAQUS documentations/user community, but I couldn’t find any solutions. I would appreciate any input and advice you have on this problem.