ABAQUS/CAE User's Manual


12.9.6 Defining specific heat

You can define the specific heat per unit mass of a material as a function of temperature and field variables. When possible, you should model large changes in internal energy during a phase change with a latent heat definition rather than a specific heat definition. See the following sections for more information:

To specify specific heat:

  1. From the menu bar in the Edit Material dialog box, select ThermalSpecific Heat.

    (For information on displaying the Edit Material dialog box, see “Creating or editing a material,” Section 12.6.1.)

  2. Toggle on Use temperature-dependent data to define specific heat as a function of temperature.

    A column labeled Temp appears in the Data table.

  3. Click the arrows to the right of the Number of field variables field to increase or decrease the number of field variables on which the specific heat depends.

  4. Enter the following data in the Data table:

    Specific Heat

    Specific heat per unit mass. (Units of JM–1–1.)

    Temp

    Temperature

    Field n

    Predefined field variables.

    For detailed information on how to enter data, see “Entering tabular data,” Section 3.2.7.

  5. Click OK to close the Edit Material dialog box. Alternatively, you can select another material behavior to define from the menus in the Edit Material dialog box (see “Browsing and modifying material behaviors,” Section 12.6.2, for more information).