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:

  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.)

  2. Choose the specific heat Type:

    • Use Constant Volume for a structural model in Abaqus/Standard or Abaqus/Explicit.

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

    A column labeled Temp appears in the Data table.

  4. 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.
  5. Enter the following data in the Data table:

    Specific Heat

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

    Temp

    Temperature

    Field n

    Predefined field variables.

    For detailed information on how to enter data, see Entering tabular data.

  6. 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, for more information).