Thermal-Mechanical interaction ranges from simple thermal stress (one-way coupling in which an uncoupled heat transfer simulation drives a stress analysis through thermal expansion) to more complex friction-driven heat transfer (in which frictional sliding generates heat as in brake systems) to fully coupled temperature-displacement simulation (in which motion affects heat transfer and heat transfer affects motion). Examples include thermo-mechanical durability in many industries from internal combustion engines in Automotive to package reliability in Electronics. Also, many manufacturing processes such as soldering (cooling from a liquid to solid state), forging, and extrusion involve Thermal-Mechanical Multiphysics.
The Abaqus Unified FEA products have included extensive capabilities for thermal-mechanical Multiphysics simulation from the very first version of Abaqus in the 1980's—all within the comfortable environment of Abaqus. These capabilities include thermal stress, adiabatic response, and coupled thermo-mechanical simulation in both Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit.
