Forces caused by the thermal expansion of a part.

[Heft]

Hi everyone

i know this may be a bit hard to explain but here goes.

imagine a glass hemispherical cap is being pressed onto a copper insert, the insert is concave and exactly matches the shape of the glass cap. when the cap is pressing on the copper the parts are heated.

what i want to know is how can i simulate the forces that act on cap which are caused by the expansion of the copper insert, i belive that the varing thickness of the copper could be causing certain areas to expand more and therefore the glass caps are cracking due to the uneven load.

i have only used pro/e and pro/mechanica before.

any ideas will be greatly appericiated.

 

[kd2]

Heft,

One trick that I have tried is to set the coeffiecint of thermal expansion to 0 for the part being compressed and then apply a global temperature load to the model. In this situation, only the copper insert will be heated and will expand. The glass (cte = 0) essentially does not see an increase in temperture and will be compressed by the insert. Probably a worst case situation but one I have tried.

All the best