Triangular Shell Heat Transfer Element for the Thermal Analysis of Nonuniformly Heated Structures
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper presents a triangular shell heat transfer element that is used to simulate the thermal response of nonuniformly heated structures. The formulation uses a combination of finite-element and control volume techniques to arrive at a layered shell element that is used to solve the 3D conduction heat transfer problem in a highly efficient manner. This paper considers a 3-node linear element and a 6-node quadratic element. The element formulation is verified against a converged continuum heat transfer model for a thick steel plate exposed to a concentrated heat flux, a thick steel pipe exposed to a concentrated heat flux, and a concrete slab exposed to a localized fire. The verification studies demonstrate that the linear and quadratic elements consistently converge to the continuum model and require a fraction of the computational cost. The verification study involving the concrete slab exposed to a localized fire demonstrates that the formulation can readily handle steep temperature gradients as well as temperature-dependent material properties.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under Contract Number N00014-13-C-0373. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring agency.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 1 • January 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 25, 2014
Accepted: Apr 2, 2015
Published online: Jun 12, 2015
Discussion open until: Nov 12, 2015
Published in print: Jan 1, 2016
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