Plastic Analysis of a Circular Rod subjected to Sinusoidal Thermal Cycling

This paper presents a finite element analysis of the elasto-plastic behavior of a circular rod subjected to sinusoidal thermal cycling. Differences between elastic and plastic behaviors are compared. The impact of Biot number and cyclic frequency on the stress and strain field are discussed. the strain range index is devised to evaluate the potential structural damage on the rod surface, and a simple engineering approach is proposed to predict total strain range for fatigue damage evaluation.