Dear Richard, Dave, and others,

I have a case where the ambient Temperature is 27 Celcius, the Design Temp. (Low) = -168 C, and Design Temp. (High) = 37.8.
what magnitude should i input in CAESAR II, coz one of my friend told me when we have this discussion that from ASME B31.3 we shall take the differential temperature or "Range Temperature" (That's my point of view from the CODE), if i follow this, off course i will set at Kaux option to set Temp. Ambient to 27 C, and then at input T1= 195 C (Range from -168 C to 27 C) and at T2= 10.8. and i think this is not right, isn't it, coz all we need that from Temperature Input, CAESAR will get the thermal expansion (from the number/magnitude that we input), so from this point of view i will take T1=-168 C and T2= 37.8 C.
Please, correct me if i'm wrong, i will si glad to hear input from you all....it is very simple problem, but i have see many engineer make wrong in this basic problem.
So please, input from you all that offcourse having many time and experience with stress analysis and CAESAR II.