Mechanical-Thermal analysis - sequence

Hi,
I need some help to clarify the *STEP sequence for my analysis please.
It is primarily a heat transfer analysis although the assembly has pre-tension in order to produce the contact pressure at the interface and subsequent gap conductance.
The *STATIC step is working fine with the *PRE-TENSION SECTION and surface to surface contact is made sucessfully.
I have tried following the *STATIC step with a *HEAT TRANSFER,STEADYSTATE step but I don’t get results in the .frd file for the second step although to job finishes.
I’m not confident that this approach is correct, does the strain state from the static step carry through to the heat transfer step (it does for static to static steps)?
I would like to pursue the mechanical-thermal approach but as a plan B, is there a means of directly applying a contact conductance value between two adjacent/touching surfaces, in a heat transfer step only?
I appreciate any guidance, thank you
Tim

I think that it will be good to clarify this since the approach to thermo-mechanical analyses in CalculiX can be confusing, especially for Abaqus users. Basically, there are two options to perform thermal stress analysis in ccx:
*UNCOUPLED TEMPERATURE-DISPLACEMENT step - thermal and mechanical analyses are solved sequentially - thermal simulation is followed by mechanical one in each increment and thus there’s no feedback from mechanical analysis to thermal one within the same increment
*COUPLED TEMPERATURE-DISPLACEMENT step - thermal and mechanical analyses are solved simultaneously and thus coupling works in both ways - temperature influences displacements and displacements influence temperature

1 Like

Calc_em
Thank you for clarifying the thermo-mechanical analyses, I will revive that part of my project and try it.
Much appreciated
Tim