Custom expansion in ANSYS

carraway · Dec 8, 2020

Hello there!
I would like to make a simulation of radiation-induced volumetric expansion of minerals by showing development of stresses in ANSYS. I have a function which describes swelling and a model of polycrystalline rock, my guess is that I should somehow modify built-in tools like thermal expansion and make it develop by my function. My question is how do you simulate default expansion? Are there any related sources?
Thank you for your answers!

rickfischer51 · Dec 16, 2020

By default expansion I assume you mean the thermal expansion due to a temperature rise. Think of the thermal expansion coefficient as a general expansion coefficient. The coefficient with have two terms, a thermal term and a radiation swelling term. The thermal term is equal to alpx. Use your swelling function to calculate a swelling strain. Then determine the swelling coefficient as follows: ε_swell=α_swellxΔT →α_swell=ε_swell/ΔT. Add alpx to α_swell to get the general expansion coefficient. If the temperature and radiation are uniform over the entire model, this is a hand calculation. Otherwise you have to make the calculation on an element basis and create a unique material for each element. This is easy to do with some APDL. If the model is large, you will need to use vector operations (*VGET, *VOPER, *VFUN,etc) and implied loops to speed things up.

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

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Custom expansion in ANSYS

carraway

Structural

rickfischer51

Mechanical

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