Thermomechanical Coupling Analysis of Two Concentric Cylinders with Initial Gap Using DG Finite Element Method

In this paper, thermomechanical coupling analysis of two concentric cylinders with initial gap is investigated by using the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method. The thermomechanical coupling analysis is divided into a thermal subproblem and a mechanical subproblem in the sequencial coupling algorithm. The Picard iteration procedure with a relaxation technique is also employed to accelerate the rate of convergence of the iterative procedure and avoid numerical instability. Due to the existence of the thermal contact resistance (TCR) between these two cylinders, some interesting thermomechanical coupling phenomena appeared. It is found that a proper initial gap may greatly reduce the maximum equivalent stress in structures. Moreover, the DG finite element method not only can be used to simulate the thermomechanical coupling problems effectively, but also can find out this proper initial gap, which is valuable in engineering design and structural safety assessment.