Enhanced Thermal-Structural Analysis by Integrated Finite Elements

Abstract

Abstract : An integrated finite element approach for enhanced thermal- structural analysis is presented. The approach employs a common nodal discretization and seeks improvements in the accuracy by new hierarchical finite element formulations for the thermal and structural analyses. The effectiveness of the integrated approach is assessed for four applications with two dimensional elements. Comparative solutions show the integrated approach provides improvements in the accuracy of temperatures, displacements and thermal stresses. The applications demonstrate the practical importance of having freedom to refine each analysis independently while maintaining a common discretization. The study demonstrates that the hierarchical finite element formulations offers significant potential for the development of a general method integrated thermal-structural analysis. Keywords include: Thermal- structural analysis, thermal-stress analysis, finite elements, integrated analyses, hierarchical finite elements.