Open Access

ARTICLE

Thermal Expansion Behavior of Single Helical Clearance Structure

Cao Guohua¹, Zhu Zhencai¹, Peng Weihong², Wang Jinjie¹, Liu Zhi¹

1 School of Mechatronic Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China.
2 School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China.

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2013, 94(2), 119-138. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmes.2013.094.119

Abstract

The single helical structure is twisted by surrounding helical units with clearance or not between two layers. In order to master the thermal expansion behavior, the theory has been developed for the analysis of these helical structures. The previously deduced linear expressions of thermal expansion coefficients for the gapless structure model (GM) is used and the analytical method is applied to the clearance structure model (CM) and clearance-gapless structure model(CGM) under two boundary conditions. For further evaluating the analytical expressions of two models, the finite element models of the single helical structure surrounding by helical units with lang lay and regular lay are established by using the ANSYS software package. The analytical method is consistent with the numerical method by comparison. Thus, the analytical method is applied to analysis CM, GM and CGM. The results show that the thermal expansion coefficients of GM and CGM are the nonlinear function for the parameters of helical angle, but the CM could be approximately considered as linear functions; these coefficients also could be approximately treated as linear functions of the temperature variable coefficient under two boundary conditions; the value of thermal expansion coefficients for CM is less than GM, but values of CGM are related with the parameters of temperature variable coefficient and helical angle. The method of the analysis for thermal expansion behavior of single helical clearance structure is obtained, which is useful to investigate geometric and mechanical behavior of complicated helical structures.

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Keywords

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