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[Isita]

Hello,

I am trying to find the von Mises stress in a heat exchanger. Here is a schematic

There are other features inside but the key point is that the plates inside are just repeating along the width. I do not have enough memory to simulate the entire model so I want to focus on one of the repeating plates:

I want to

1. Get the mechanical stress (interior pressure applied) 

2. Get the thermal stress. I have the expected temperature profile from a Fluent simulation and have been able to apply it on the geometry.

3. Find the combined thermo-mechanical stress by having both mechanical and thermal loads.

I was wondering which boundary conditions I should be using if I am only considering the stripe shown. For now I am thinking of imposing a zero displacement with respect to the bottom face, one with respect to the back face, but I am not sure about the side faces in red. If I use periodic boundary on each side, in the thermal case, am I not overconstraining the stripe while the actual model can freely expand?

Thanks