Domain-independent thermoviscoelastic modeling framework: A physical approach on thermoelasticity by bond graph

Controlling the thermomechanical behavior of a multiphysical system has always been a challenging issue, because the general behavior of the system in this case is a result of complex energetic transactions between the system's existing physical subdomains. In this study, a novel thermoviscoelastic modeling framework is proposed in which the thermomechanical behavior of the system is generated from the interactive dynamics of its involving subdomains. To this aim, by means of the Bond graph approach, the dynamic behavior of each subdomain is first generated separately with respect to the interactions of its own energetic components. The dynamics of all involving subdomains are then coupled via generating reversible and irreversible interactions between the counterpart energetic components of different subdomains. The impacts of geometrical and material changes on the system dynamics are finally added to the model via the compatibility consideration of the energetic components of different subdomains. The proposed modeling framework provides an energetic structure with which the general dynamics of the system are obtained from the constructive dynamics of each of the subdomains. This special capability of the proposed modeling framework leads to an automatic capture of the thermomechanical phenomena inside the system. The obtained simulation results for a simple beam structure demonstrate the impacts of the internal dynamics on the observable behavior of the system and prove the applicability of the proposed approach to the modeling of a wide range of thermomechanical behaviors, including material softening, vibrational heating, dilation, relaxation, conduction, and damping.