FEM strategies for Large Scale Thermo-Mechanical Simulations with Material Non-linearity

Numerical techniques based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) are mature to provide computational tools that permit multi-physical problems to be dealt with. A relevant case concerns thermo-mechanical simulations of industrial components and processes. Nevertheless, a thermo-mechanical FEM model generally requires a transient non-linear analysis where the variation of material properties with temperature, as well as plasticity and creep, have to be considered. It follows that large scale models are often obtained and unfeasible computational time is thus required. The aim of this work is to put in evidence the possible scale reduction that can be achieved introducing model simplifications based on a practical engineering approach.