More Than One Way to Heat Up a Truss

OpenSees can solve every reasonable problem from any structural analysis textbook. But I nearly had a meltdown over a simple truss problem because truss elements in OpenSees do not directly support thermal loading. Consider Example 6.17, shown below, from J.C. Smith’s Structural Analysis. All members of the truss have E=29000 ksi, A=10 inch2, and α=6.5e-6 (coefficient of thermal expansion, … Continue reading More Than One Way to Heat Up a Truss →

Minimal Thermal Example

For verification purposes, I needed to come up with the fixed-end axial force for a beam subjected to uniform thermal expansion. It's not rocket science, nowhere near an LPU, but a little pencil and paper and the free end axial deflection is $latex \alpha (\Delta T) L$. The fixed-end axial force, to push the free … Continue reading Minimal Thermal Example →

OpenSees Fire v2.0

OpenSees modules for thermal loading and thermo-mechanical behavior were developed by Usmani et al in the early 2010s. This was the first foray for OpenSees outside its earthquake engineering comfort zone and highlighted the benefits of an open, collaborative software framework--an opportunity for the research community to share modeling methodologies, develop new applications, and ensure … Continue reading OpenSees Fire v2.0 →