Features & Benefits
A variety of boundary conditions is available, e.g. from a simple imposed flux to complex interactions such as mutual radiation and temperature dependent contact conditions. The thermal contact algorithms take the deformation of the mesh, which occurs due to surface ablation, into account.
For post-processing a number of options are available that can list and display temperatures, conductive flux, gas mass flux and applied flux on whole or part of the structure. Furthermore specialized commands exist to calculate the thermal balance on part of the structure. Also the mass and volume loss can be calculated, and with the help of a “thermocouple” the temperature (pressure and density) of a fixed point in a deforming mesh, can be measured.
Finally, SAMCEF Ablation provides the mechanical problem (SAMCEF Linear and SAMCEF Mecano) with the appropriate temperature distribution for a thermo-mechanical analysis. The meshes used in the axisymmetric thermal and the axissymmetric/3D mechanical analyses do not have to be identical, and the temperature field can be interpolated between meshes.
SAMCEF Ablation takes into account heat transfer due to conduction, convection and radiation for 3D/2D/axi-symmetric structures, while at the same time modeling material charring and surface ablation. A transient analysis can be performed using either fixed or automatic time stepping. The element library consists of elements that model conduction, gas diffusion and charring. For the charring of the material, models of increasing complexity can be used, starting with a single Arrhénius law and ending with a user defined multi-species law. All the material properties can depend (non-linearly) on temperature, pressure and density (charring), while in addition the conductivity can be orthotropic.
