use *distribution to define spatial variation of expansion coefficient

[woodunb]

Now I try to use *distribution to define the spatial variation(in two directions) of expansion coefficient.

But in ABAQUS, *distribution can only be defined on the nodes or elements. There is thousands of elements in my model. It is tedious to define such huge amount of elements in the model. Even I divide the elements into different groups,the job to define the property in *Distribution is still terrible.

Have anyone done similar work before? Hope you can share some good ideas. Thanks a lot.

Mingkai