Development of a structural engineering oriented finite element software feheat for nonlinear heat transfer analysis

Abstract

An existing structural engineering oriented finite element software, FEHEAT, that can solve two-dimensional heat transfer problems with nonlinear boundary con ditions was further developed in this study. The software gained the ability to handle temperature dependent material properties. The tangent stiffness matrix was modified such that it can now consider nonlinear material properties and the heat exchange between surfaces. With this modification, the efficiency of Newton-Raphson nonlin ear solution algorithm was significantly increased. Verifications for common scenarios were made with comparing FEHEAT results with commercial finite element software ABAQUS that is a well-known and well-proven software. All results showed that FE HEAT can handle any of these problems with great accuracy. A graphical user interface (GUI) was designed to create inputs using a user-friendly interface for the main code and provide post-processing tools for analysis. Using GUI, one can either model a prob lem by specifying properties one-by-one or model multiple problems using the interface for parametric modelling. The letter provides a powerful tool for parametric studies. Overall design of software was aimed at providing structural engineers a powerful tool that gives the ability to solve advanced heat transfer problems and both speedup and simplify the modelling phase.