How do I assign a thermal capacitance to a single node using a cap.dat.apnd file? Cannnot find a description of the input and how to ensure patq used the file.
How do I assign a thermal capacitance to a single node using a cap.dat.apnd file? Cannnot find a description of the input and how to ensure patq used the file.
create a cap.dat.apnd text file in the folder that has the Patran.db and put in the necessary data.
The cap.dat.apnd data structure is described in the help manual under the Patran docs section:
Thermal:Thermal:Thermal/Hydraulic Input Deck:Network Construction:Capacitor Data
Often the easiest way to understand it is to convert an existing binary cap.dat file into text using patq from a command window and the option:
6 --> Select Additional PATQ Utility Options.
6 --> Convert CONDUCDAT, VFRESDAT, CAPDAT or QPLOTDAT
Files from Binary to Text.
3 --> Convert Binary Capacitor File
an example would look like:
CAP 33 404 405 2.000000E-05 406
the structure is defined as:
CAP NODE RHO CP VOL PHID
Node is the node number and RHO, CP and PHID are MPID material numbers. VOL is the volume.
Like most PATQ input it is free format layout
Sometimes when modelling I will want a capacitor to represent a volume of material (typically the air in some container) and rather than make the cap.dat.apnd to add the single capacitor data I will create a single hex element of the correct volume and use the TCOUPL to "fix" the nodes together (Create/TEMP/NODAL Coupled), slaving 7 nodes to one node. I then use this node as my "fluid" node. This method allows me to easily get the capacitor volume right and also to do all the work in Patran without creating an apnd file.
