I’m performing a steady-state heat transfer analysis in HyperMesh. My structural model consists of shell elements. Although there is no actual gap between the shells, there is also no thermal contact defined between them, so I can’t see any temperature distribution at the end of the analysis.
I’ve tried many things for the thermal contact. For example, I select the adjacent elements of the shells and create a contact between the two sets using PCONT. I also define PCONTHT (or set it to AUTO):
CONTACT 1 2222222 50 51 OPENGAP
PCONT 22222222 AUTO NO (separation No)PCONTHT 22222222 AUTO
I’ve also tried replacing OPENGAP with NORM.
In addition, I tested the FREZE and AUTO CONTACT options. I also tried N2N together with FREEZE. I even defined the contact as S2S for the one created with PCONT. No matter what I do, I can’t get a proper temperature distribution.
When I assign conductance directly through PCONT, I usually get abnormally high temperatures at one or two nodes.
Could you please advise on the correct way to define a thermal contact for shell structures in steady-state thermal analysis?
Best
