Hello Community!

I have an optical assembly where I’m accessing the performance utilizing two different materials, stainless steel and aluminum over a temperature range.  The calculated RBM’s that I’m getting from the STAR module are contradicting my intuition.  The FEA software I’m using is Ansys Mechanical. 

My intuition tells me that if you were accessing deformation due to temperature range that is centered at ambient, then the calculated RBM’s should be equal in magnitude but in opposite directions.  Assuming the temp range is symmetric about ambient.  That holds true when looking at the deformation magnitude in Ansys Mechanical but not the RBM’s as calculated by the STAR Module.  

With help from this community, would anybody mind putting these two FEA text files into the STAR Module and let me know what the calculated RBM’s are?  After much investigation, the only source I can think of is an issue with the calculation of the FEA data/.txt file to RBM’s.  Verifying the calculated RBM’s with another users software would be very helpful in troubleshooting.  See attached, the two attachments are from a asymmetric temperature range, so I don’t expect them to be equal in magnitude but I do expect them to be in opposite directions. 

Thanks!

-Jeff