Heating Due to Material Elastic Deformation

Several projects in engineering involve rotating parts submitted to bending loads, which can result in the material heating. This thermal load happens due to energy loss caused by the material damping. This heat source can be great enough to make the component reach high temperatures and, consequently, risk its performance or even its resistance. A theoretical approach, considering that part of the mechanical energy is converted to thermal energy, implies that the maximum temperature found in a uniform rotary beam is linear dependent with the rotating speed and is directly proportional to the square of the applied load. This work intends to present some results acquired from an experiment performed in a fatigue test machine and also validate the theoretical formulation. Stainless steel (316L) specimens were painted with matte black ink to improve their emissivity. The temperature was measured via a FLIR thermographic infrared camera. The experimental results match with the theoretical prediction. Furthermore, it was evaluated the percentage of the mechanical energy which is converted to thermal loss. The result showed that this fraction also is dependent to the rotation speed and the applied load.