Numerical Procedure for Calculation of Temperature Evolution in Composite Elements with Internal Cavities

In the paper a computation code based on the finite-element method for temperature evolutions in composite elements with internal cavities is presented. It is suitable for the analysis of various thermal problems encountered in mechanical and civil engineering such as fire risk assessment. It is based on a plane isoparametric triangular element with six nodes allowing the modelling of curved boundaries. In order to analyze composite steel-concrete elements and to take into account the non-linearities coming from the temperature-dependent material properties and from the boundary conditions, an implicit integration scheme is used. Another advantage of the program is the possibility of describing internal cavities with convection and radiation exchanges. In order to show the capacity of the program two examples are presented. Comparisons have been made with experimental and other numerical results, exhibiting very good agreement.