I'm running a thermal simulation with a temperature change from 293K to 88K. It's all 6061 aluminum. The temperature load is applied to all exposed faces. This sim is of a single piece with a fixed connection around the edge of one bolt hole on the bottom left. It is mostly unconstrained and allowed to expand thermally. Since the deflection is allowed, I'd expect a zero-stress state, but I see stresses of 20-30 ksi. It seems like at sharp edges and holes, it spikes, but even in the smooth areas between, it spikes. There is an odd, non-uniform stress pattern between elements (the splotchy blue and green).
If anyone knows how to refine a SolidWorks thermal simulation like this, please let me know, or if there's some knowledge I'm missing. Any insight is appreciated.
Thanks!
Two stupid questions: Is the mesh refined enough? And is the material temperature-dependent, i.e. why would you expect zero stress if the material expands with temperature when only exposed faces (not all) have applied temp?
I'll look into refining the mesh. In this analysis, all exposed faces are all of the faces. I ran a simple plate as a test where all six sides were exposed to the temperature change and still observed higher than expected stress. I also got my hands on Ansys and ran the same study. I saw near-zero stress in the areas I see 20-30 ksi with SolidWorks.
Billy Amtmann
Maybe it is not a good idea to say this here, but I don't trust Cosmos to solve this kind of problem! In my opinion, they still have a long way to get their software in a place it should be!
If you perform a transient analysis and change the temperature, you may see some residual stresses initially, however, once the model turned into a steady-state there should not be any stresses (almost zero).
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