How can I define the thermal elastic material?

[hiroronshige]

I want to define thermal elastic material for simulating nonlinear mes analysis.

It requires index, tempreature, Young ratio, Poisson ratio and thermal expansion ratio.

What tempreature means in this, and give me an example how to define those.

I'd like to use mes analysis for simulating bilayer thermal actuator.

[AstroJohnPE]

Hi hirononshige,

The thermal elastic material model in MES uses temperature dependent material properties. That is, the material properties can change with temperature.

You need to enter at least two rows in the material properties so that the software can interpolate the material properties at the temperature of each node of the model. So if your model is at 20 degree C, you could enter material properties for 0 and 30 C. Obviously, if you only have the material properties for "room temperature", you can enter the same material properties for two different temperatures.

Since the properties are temperature dependent, the model needs to have a temperature. (The software cannot interpolate a table based on temperature if the model has no temperature ) If your model is at a uniform temperature, the easiest setup is to use the "Model > Model Setup > Parameters" and the "Thermal" tab. The "Source of Temperature" would be set to "Loads from FEA Editor". You can then specify a "Default Temperature" and assign it to a load curve.