dilatation of a tube

[vlad1979]

Hi all,


Can someone point me in the right direction.


I have a steeltube of

 

[burnsp]

You can manually calculate it for both the length and diameter using the thermal coefficient of expansion for the material and the change in temperature. You shouldn't need pro/e to do this.

 

[vlad1979]

Well, I don't want to stay and calculate by hand if this can be accomplished withMechanica. (I don't know how, I will have to get a book and see how, can't be to hard)


Beasides I will need to make adocument showing the expansion and it will look better if I have a picture from Mechanica not just the calculations.

The part is looking like this. I think the small tube can be omitted.


View attachment 2847

 

[burnsp]

I think you're right. Due to the complextity of the tube (multiple curves,planes, diameters), Mechanicashould be more accurate and maybe quicker. Unfortunately, I only use Mechanica for load/stress analysis. I have littleexperience with thermal analysis, although this one shouldn't be too hard.

 

[vlad1979]

I agree it shouldn't be but don't know how to start. I toouse Mechanica for load/stress. This is the first timeI try Thermal analysis. I thought on making a heat load on the interior surfaces of 100 degrees but don't know if I started right. Anyway there should be someone here who know how to do it.


I look in Help but PTC help is .... will be better without PTC help.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Mikhail33]

Tell us more about conditionsof theair at the inlet (temperature, pressure and velocity/flow)and exterio

 

[vlad1979]

The numbers are the tube diameters (I need to know the expansion for the large tube, the 1400 tube I think it can be ignored, but I thought I should mention it also, maybe it's important).


The temperature inside will be 100 degrees. The others I don't know right now (are they important for what Ineed?).The tube will be protected on the exterior with a 100mm isolation (don't know the material), the tube will be in the open, so I think on the exterior it can be -30degrees or +30degrees, but having the isolation I don't think it matters.


I just got this assignament so don't know much about this. Except that I have to find out how much it will expand. So I thought I post this maybe someone will point me in the right direction.


So if anyone knows how to do this, let me know what parameters I need to run a thermal analysis and how to do it.

 

[vlad1979]

well, this seamed at the begining a pretty straigth forward task and I thought Mechanica will make this in a second. But searching mechanica Help I didn't find any reference to something like this, so I searched PTC site and found something that I think it's kind of the same.


http://www.ptc.com/cs/cs_25/howto/mst728/mst728.htm


and this is a standard static analysis and not a thermal one.


My tube is like this steel block (in the article), willsuffer a change of temperatureupto 100 degrees and it will expand. So I'll give this a try on Monday and see if it works.