Meaning of “2D Behavior” in thermal simulations in WB Mechanical

- October 7, 2019 at 4:22 pm
  
  KenGrimes1
  Subscriber
  
  Hi everybody,
  
  Could someone explain to me or point me to a reference explaining the meaning of the several options under “2D Behavior” (like “Plane Stress”, “Plane Strain” and so on) in thermal simulations in WB Mechanical?
  
  I do know what “Plane Stress” and “Plane Strain” mean for a structural simulation, but I’m perplexed by the meaning of this option in a thermal simulation.
  
  Many thanks in advance,
  
  Best regards
  
  Ken
- October 8, 2019 at 3:08 am
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
  What happens when you change the setting from the default Plane Stress to Plane Strain? The answer is the model becomes broken and you can't use it. Why is that? When the 2D behavior is set to Plane Stress, the surface is assigned a thickness. That is very useful because it means an edge in the model has a finite surface area so that when you assign a heat flow in Watts, it can calculate the heat flux by dividing by the area. When you set the 2D behavior to Plane Strain, the thickness property of the surface disappears because it is infinite, which isn't useful for thermal calculations.
  
  It would be better if the developers of Mechanical would just take away the Plane Strain choice when the analysis system is Thermal.
  
  Axisymmetric thermal models use axisymmetric equations which are different from Plane equations and give different answers because the geometry is different.
  - August 17, 2023 at 6:08 pm
    
    Aaron Ocampo
    Subscriber
    
    .
- October 8, 2019 at 7:02 am
  
  KenGrimes1
  Subscriber
  
  Thanks peteroznewman !