All,

I'm working on some Thermal models using material data provided to me by another company.  The material property information in the .inp file was in metric but I, and the people I give my results to, think in British units.  To make life easier I decided to convert the material properties into British units, with a simple surface flux solid model used to verify that the resultant temperatures are the same in both systems.  I converted C to F in units (i.e. W/(mm*C) into BTU/(s*in*F)) using 9/5 because a 1 degC increase is a 1.8 degF increase in temperature, and the +32 in the conversion drops out in that sense.

I run my model, and my degF temperatures are off by exactly 32 degrees compared to the degC answers (i.e. degF = 9/5 * degC, rather than degF = 9/5 * degC + 32).  This is going to be a problem when I try to use the temperature solution in a stress/strain analysis, particularly with all of the temperature-dependent elastic/plastic information which is based on absolute temperatures rather than changes in temperature as the thermal variables are based on.

How do I fix this problem?  Is it a simple unit conversion problem, or is the solution more complicated.  I can attach my model file which has both the SI properties and the converted British properties, if necessary.

Thank you,

Mike