ME 623A

Finite Element Methods

Course Project
Finite Element Analysis of Bimetallic Strip

Project Guide
Prof. Dr N.N Kishore

Group 13
11250 Dhrupal R Shah
11552 Rachit Tripathi
11606 Riya Khurana

A Finite Element Method Analysis for

Bimetallic strip
Problem: A bimetallic strip of aluminum and brass is
heated and the steady state temperature is non-uniform and
is given by 100e200xy . Brass strip thickness is given (= 1cm)
and Aluminum strip thickness is to be find so that strip just
touches a limit switch at a distance of 2mm. Also the
maximum von-mises stress is to be determined.

Governing Equation:
The given problem is similar to the general solid mechanics stress
strain problem with given boundary conditions. The bimetallic strip
has a strain induced in it due to thermal expansion. The governing
differential equations for both the case are similar

X 0

y
Y 0
x
y

X = Body force in element in X direction.

Y

= Body force in element in Y direction.

x = Stress vector of the element in x plane in x direction

y = Stress vector of the element in y plane in y direction
x = Stress vector of the element in x plane in y direction
y

The strain induced in the body due to thermal effect is defined as

follows

( o
xx
m

yy
m

th

o
0

xy

Where

( k )
i

o Constant Room Temperature

xx , yy
, xy

are strains along x in x plane, along y in y plane, along y in

x plane

respectiv
ely.

Virtual Work Formulation

The given problem can be solved using virtual work formulation where
we will equate internal work with the external work. The following
equation gives the integral from of the virtual work approach.

u
e

Se

PdS
e

Ve

dV

Where
P= External Force applied
u and are virtual displacement and virtual strain

The stress in material having thermal strains is defined as

{ } [D]([B]
{u
where

1
*

} {th })

0
0 E and are Youngs Modulus and Poissons
ratio

E
(1 )

0 0

bi

B 0
ci

0
ci
bi

bj 0
bk
0 cj
0
c j bj
ck

ck

bk

bi ( y j yk ) / 2 *
Ae

ci (xk x j ) / 2 * Ae

b j ( yk yi ) / 2 *
Ae

c j (xi xk ) / 2 * Ae

bk ( yi y j ) / 2 *
Ae

ck (x j xi ) / 2 * Ae

Wher xi , yi , x j , y j , xk , are the coordinates of nodes of triangular element

e
yki
The weak form of the equation can be deuced to give the following
simple result

 {u

} [B] [D]([B]{u }

th

})dS 0
e

{
e

}dS

{u

*{u }

{u } [B] [D][B]{u }dS

{u } [B] [D]
th

{ f }dS

A
e

S
e

} [K ]{u } {u } { f }
T

[K ] [B] [D][B]* A
e

[K ]{u } { f }
e

{ f } [B] [D]
{

}* A

With this simplified condition we can proceed further to find the

elemental k and then formulate the global matrix, the after applying
boundary conditions we can calculate the displacement of the nodes
and finally we can compute the von mises stress.

Boundary Conditions
The given problem has only displacement boundary condition. The
traction force is zero on all points except the ones having
displacement boundary condition. The following conditions represent
the boundary condition.

u 0
v
0

on y-axis at x=0

x n x xy n y
0

y = 5, y = 0, and x = 40 lines

y n y xy n x
0

Defining the mesh

We have taken the mesh2D code by Darren Engwirda, available in
matlab website. The code takes the points of polygon to form a
triangular mesh within it and returns the matrix of nodes which gives
X and Y coordinates of the nodes and a triangle matrix which gives
the number of nodes which together form a triangle.

The Problem we faced in defining mesh was to have a line after the
end of first strip defining the nodes. We first defined a mesh with the
dimensions of the brass strip and extracted the top nodes of the
mesh. We stored it variable topline(). Then we defined another mesh
of dimensions of aluminum strip with the nodes of topline() as the
point of the polygon.

Then using the user defined function mergeNode.m we can merge

two meshes and form a global mesh with triG and NodeG as node
matrix and triangle matrix.

Defining various variable used in program

The element of the mesh is accessed by defining a structure sG.
The structure has various variable like [K],[B], {sigma} ,{phim}
etc.
The variable nodeG represent coordinates of various
nodes in the mesh. The variable triG represent nodes of
various triangles in the mesh.
The KG defines the global K matrix and fG is global thermal force
matrix.

Formulating the Global Matrix

The global matrix are defined by removing the rows and columns of
the nodes with known displacements. We can calculate the {f} matrix
for other nodes from the strain of nodes. The nodal displacement
matrix can be found out by taking the inverse of modified K matrix
and multiplying it with the modified {f} matrix. Thus we can find out
the displacements of each node.
{u }[K ]{u } {u } { f
g

} [K ]{u } { f }

With modified K and f we can find the global U matrix.

g

g 1

{u } [k ] { f }

The inverse of the {Kg} is taken out by using pseudo inverse function.
This function takes out inverse even in case of singular matrix.

Solving for trivial problem

For verification of code, we have taken a trivial problem of a Brass
strip heated uniformly to 100C with no displacement boundary
condition allowing free expansion. The results of displacements along
X and along Y were studied and they were calculated manually. The
following result were obtained.

Manual Calculation:
Length along X= 0.4 m

brass 20 * 10^(-6) K-1

Length along Y= 0.06 m

Tm =

100 C

T0 =

200C

T 800C

Elongation in X= 0.4*20*10(-6)*80 = 7.104*10(-4)

m= 0.7104 mm Elongation in Y= 0.06*20*10(-6)*80
= 1.065*10(-4) m= 0.1065 mm Results From

Code:
The temperature distribution is given below.

The X and Y displacements of the various positions of the node are plotted
below.

The given graphs suggest that the strip is expands in both the
direction having positive in one and negative in the other.

The X elongation according to code is 0.6399mm and along Y

direction is 0.09525 mm.

The above diagram shows the Von-mises stress at each element. As

material is elongated freely the stress should be near to zero. The
maximum stress found out in this case is 4 *10-4 Pa which is almost
negligible as compared to usual values of stress.

The above plot shows the strip being elongated in x direction with no
bending present.

Problem of Bending strip :

A Bimetallic Strip of aluminum and brass is uniformly heated to 100C
with no displacement boundary condition allowing free expansion
with the strip bending on its own. The strip will bend towards the
material having lower . Following plot shows the constant
temperature.

The given Plot shows that the strip bends towards

the brass side.

The following graph shows the X and Y displacement plot the

bimetallic strip in uniform temperature lying on its own

The Von Mises Stress distribution is given by

following plot.

The Maximum stresses are observed at the junction of the two materials

Solving Problem for given conditions

The dimensions given in the questions were not suitable and were not
giving required result (2mm deflection). So we changed the
dimensions so as to get the required result. The given problem is
solved with the given dimension of strip as 40cm * 1cm of brass
strip. The temperature distribution were chosen
as 100e

200xy

where x and y are

chosen in m. The results were iterated for the thickness of

aluminum strip and the thickness is found out to be 3.5cm.
Temperature distribution plot

Deflected Strip
(scale 1:1)

The X and Y displacements of the various positions of the node are

plotted below with the deflection scaled up by the factor of 10. This
helps us in analyzing the given solution.

X-

Displacement distribution

Y- Displacement distribution

Maximum X deflection= 0.5mm

2.0mm

Maximum Y deflection=

Iterating aluminum thickness

We iterated the code by changing the aluminum thickness every time
and the following table was constructed.
Iteration Number
Aluminum
Y-Deflection of
1.
1
2.528423435996
2.
2
2.309994462993
3.
4
1.916808539135
4.
3
2.081664067357
5.
3.5
1.985361719762
So finally we took the value of thickness to be 3.5 cm

Calculating the Von- Mises Stress

' (x2 y2 3*xy2 x y
With the given displacements, we can found out the stress on the
element with the given formula. The von mises stress was
calculated and 2d plot was created.

The above stress distribution is for the case when both X,Y
displacements at the fixed edge of the bimetallic strip are
constrained. The above distribution is for very fine mesh (h.data
variable in code is set to be 0.003).

We have considered another case where only X displacements at

the fixed edge is constrained. The stress distribution is shown
below.
The given plot suggests that the stress in aluminum is comparatively
small as compared to that of brass. The stress is maximum at points
near support. The stress at the lower boundary of the strip is
significantly larger then that at inside.

Conclusions
The thickness of the aluminum strip is found out to be 3.5 cm.
The maximum von mises stress is found out to be 391MPa
With the stress distribution shown the maximum stress
occurs at the point of support with relatively very small stress
at other places.
The Bimetallic strip deflects in other direction when heated to
uniform constant temperature and it is not attached to any given
boundary as the of aluminum is more than that of brass.
The of aluminum is more than that of brass, still the strip
bends in opposite direction i.e towards the aluminum side
due to the dominant effect of given temperature distribution.
The stresses at the wall are reduced when the Y constraints are
removed from
the fixed edge boundary condition while keeping the X
constraints (as shown in t stress distribution plots )