apply heat on elements surface

[mambo5]

hi all forum,

any idea how could i apply heat on the elements surface, say i have an I-steel beam, i want to apply heat on the bottom surface of the bottom flange only, as in reality the bottom part of the beam was subjected to fire. I created the I-section model by using shell element. I notice that i can only apply heat on the nodes of the elements, but not the elements itself. please help. thanks.

 

[corus]

You can either apply temperatures to nodes using *temperature and run the analysis with these loads or run a thermal analysis first and store the nodal temperatures for input into the stress analysis. For shell elements you'd have to be careful the temperatures were applied at every section point through the thickness.

corus