All,

 I have been handed an application that has a significant thermal component. We are lifting a vessel that will be at temperature, as high as 350C. We don't typically work in high temperature environments. So, this is uncharted territory. Our tooling will grab around (but not squeeze) the neck of the vessel. It's somewhat similar to the picture I've included of a barrel lifting attachment. There is a lip at the top of the vessel that will be used for the lifting purposes, i.e. we will not be lifting via friction forces from a gripping type of action. Somewhat like the hanging wine glass rack that I've also included. We need to run an FEA analysis of our design. Normally this is something we do every day, but the thermal load puts it into a whole new category. For reference, we are using Solidworks Simulation 2024.

I am not sure what the best approach is here. It seems that I could run a thermal study with the vessel temperature set to 350C to get the thermal transfer through the lift tooling. Then take those results and apply to the static load analysis. Watching a YouTube video it appears that I need to define a thermal resistance between the contacting surfaces. I don't know what the appropriate value is for stainless-stainless contact. Or if I am going about this correctly for that matter.

I am hoping that someone can provide some guidance and provide an example of this type of interaction. I don't have anything from a previous application that I can reference.