A study of the radiation thermal boundary conditions influence in three-dimensional thermomechanical contact problems

Abstract

Any body, by the simple fact of having a certain temperature on its surface, emits heat in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The heat flux emitted is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature of the solid, increasing the inherent non-linearity of the thermomechanical problems. This energy transfer, for systems at high temperatures, has greater relevance than the possible exchange of heat between bodies in contact by conduction or convection processes with a surrounding fluid in the interstitial areas. For this reason, this work presents a robust formulation to study three-dimensional thermomechanical contact problems where radiation boundary and interstitial conditions are simulated. The Boundary Element Method is used to compute the thermomechanical influence coefficients, and a double iterative procedure is used to ensure the achievement of the thermomechanical contact conditions. The final non-linear thermomechanical system of equations is solved using a Newton-Raphson procedure. The proposed formulation is validated with a comparison with some benchmark problems found in the literature and afterward applied to solve different three-dimensional thermomechanical contact problems where the thermomechanical variables are greatly affected by radiation boundary and interstitial conditions.