Define the Thermal and Static Steps

Define a thermal step to capture the laser heating and cooling effects on the part, and define a static step to capture the mechanical impact of those thermal changes.

Many engineering designs require understanding the impact of thermal conditions on the mechanical behavior of a model. A sequential thermal-structural analysis is designed to simulate these interactions. For additive manufacturing, localized heating and cooling is used throughout the process. First, a heat transfer analysis is performed on the part with appropriate temperature boundary conditions and flux loads from the laser. The temperature profiles from the completed heat transfer analysis are used to drive a stress analysis of the part to predict the residual stress.

The sequential thermal-structural approach captures the forces due to rapid localized thermal expansion and cooling as new layers are added to the part. You can use a similar analysis for traditional manufacturing steps such as welding or for in-service heating from friction or combustion processes.

In this additive manufacturing example, a laser is used to attach each new layer of metal to the part. The tied thermal and structural analysis cases were created when you first entered Additive Manufacturing Scenario Creation and chose the Thermal-Mechanical simulation type. Now you are adding the appropriate thermal and static steps to populate the analysis cases.

This task shows you how to:

• Define the Thermal Step
• Define the Structural Step