Ambient vs reference temperature |
| Structural Solver |
| The Structural Solver uses the Reference Temperature (in the Global Data Panel) to calculate the change in temperature at each node such that a strain equal to alpha time temperature change is applied (alpha is the thermal expansion coefficient). The change in temperature is given by the temperature assigned to the node minus the Reference Temperature. The structural Solver does not make use of the Ambient Temperature (defined in the element's property screens). |
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| Heat Solver |
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The Heat solver uses the Reference Temperature only in Transient problems. For Steady State Heat Flow, the Reference Temperature is not used. In a Transient Heat Problem, the Reference Temperature is used as the inital temperature of all nodes which are not set to some other temperature. The Ambient Temperature is used by all the Heat Solvers. This is the temperature of the surroundings. With this arrangement, it is very easy to analyse a structure which starts at elevated temperature (the Reference Temperature) and then allowed to progressively cool to the Ambient Temperature. Strand7 supports two ambient temperatures. The first is the Convection ambient temperature. This is the temperature used by convection coeffients as its ambient temperature. The second is the Radiation ambient temperature, used as the temperature of the radiating source for radiation coefficients. |