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FEA Assignment OTHER
FEA Assignment OTHER
SUMMARY
The problem that has been investigated treats the analysis of stress on a
semi-finite plate that presents 2 rows of staggered holes and is subjected
to a tension force. The stress will be identified taking under consideration
the variation of the plate thickness, the stress concentration factor K, the
horizontal pitch-holes diameter ratio and the angle of staggered holes .
The experimental values of the stress obtained through computational
Finite Element Analysis will be compared with the theoretical ones and the
Ansys modelling strategies will be discussed.
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays Finite Element Analysis has become very important in various
fields of research and application (biomedical, civil, aviation and
automotive engineering): setting standards in many companies, it is used
in every stage of the development of new products or components,
allowing cutting costs, saving time during early state of concept design
and guaranteeing safety and quality criterions.
In engineering, the investigation of stresses in plates of different materials
it has always been of important consideration, especially when these are
part of structures or moving system. It is critical then to analyze the
magnitude of the stress along the object in use. If the used plate is
consistent and uniform, the stress distribution will be uniform accordingly
but when holes are present along it, the distribution of the stress changes.
These geometry irregularities increase the magnitude of the stress very
close to them and that is where usually failures occur. The stress
concentration at the edge of a hole is calculated as:
max =K 0
It can be seen that in order to calculate it, a factor (K) is used: the so
called stress-concentration factor.
This factor is defined by the following formula:
K tn =
Where
max
max
nom
(1)
nom
is
The
c will be
distance
varied
throughout the experiment with values range of 0, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35,
40, 45 mm for each thickness t of 3, 5, 7 mm. With these alterations of
parameters, 27 different geometries will be obtained and subsequently
analyzed paying
particular
attention to the
stress magnitude
and the stress
concentration
factor.
From Petersons
stress
concentration
figure (Fig. 2) it
can be already
seen that for a
plate of fixed
dimensions with
staggered holes,
the smaller the
Figure 2 - Peterson's Stress Concentration Curve
ratio a over b, the
higher the net stress concentration factor is; if the holes are very small
compared to the distance that divide them, Ktn tents to 3. Additionally, the
stress concentration factor increases as the angle increases until 60,
after that the line flattens out and remains constant.
The material of the plate presents the given properties with an Elastic
Modulus of 210 GPa, Poissons ratio of 0.32 and Yield stress of 250 MPa.
DESCRIPTION OF MODELLING AND MODELLING STRATEGIES
The initial step to face the experiment was to create a work space in
Ansys Workbench under the static structural domain. During the creation
of the geometry the parameters that were supposed to vary further on in
the experiment were parameterized to avoid the creation of many
different files; in addition, it was possible to quickly set the wanted
configuration of thickness and the distance between rows of hole.
Once the plate was created respecting the geometric boundaries, the
modelling was taken to the next step; the material was assigned with the
right properties through the engineering library and the relative tension
stress of 1.2 kN was applied in the upper plate edge. In the lower part of
the plate and as well as in the right one, 2 displacement support were
applied respectively; the first with the x motion set as free and the latter
with the y motion set as free.
One of the purposes of the experiment carried out is to investigate the
effect of varying meshes on the results of stress magnitude and stress
concentration factor; 3 types of meshes have been applied to the previous
created model: Automatic, Mapped Face, and Refinement.
The best mesh out of the chosen 3 has been then used to the 27
geometries in order to investigate the practical K values against the
theoretical one for every angle .
For this particular experiment (and for a license limitation), the maximum
meshing nodes allowed had a limit of 32000.
- Automatic Meshing
The automatic mesh applies the standard meshing to the geometry. The
advantage of it is that the results can be processed at a higher speed but
the mesh is not always uniform and neat in the areas of interest: for this
reason it needs to be refined changing the elements size or controlling the
relevance option.
The Automatic mesh has been applied to the geometry keeping the
Relevance Center fine, the Smoothing angle medium and the Span Angle
Center fine; instead the element size has been varied from 4 mm to 0.9
mm.
The Mapped Face mesh can be very useful when you need an ideal mesh
around an interested area or surface; its algorithm forces the nodes grid
to adapt to the round shape (in this case) and can produce quite accurate
results in the stress regions. When this mesh has been used on the model,
a long computational time was needed to achieve results (especially with
a high number of divisions and a fine edge meshing): circular faces have
been printed around the staggered holes to guarantee a higher density of
nodes in the studied area. Usually applying this kind of mesh with default
parameters generates a fair mapped grid on the analyzed geometry but
an engineering judgment in necessary to find the right balance between
solving time, less nodes and uniform grid.
- Refinement Meshing
Refinement 1
1.5
Refinement 2
Refinement 3
Mapped Facing
Automatic
0.5
0
0
Fi
gure 6 shows the comparison of the convergence for 5 different meshes;
the configuration of the geometry was kept constant with the holes
forming one row ( = 0 because c = 0) and the thickness t set at 3 mm.
Examining the graph, it can be seen that
the automatic mesh is the worst so far.
The convergence doesnt present a
uniform pattern and at the reach of the
nodes limit, has the furthest value of Ktg
(2.47) from the theoretical gross stress
concentration factor of 2.85. Even refined,
this grid control method gave imprecise
results due to the quality of mesh near the
edge of the holes. The mapped face
control presents instead a better
convergence (13882 nodes with a Ktg
equals to 2.62) but is the Refinement with
relevance set at 3 that has been found to
be the best mesh, converging at a lower
number of nodes (8702 nodes) with the
Figure 6 - Convergence of Different Types of Meshing Methods
Ktg
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Thickness = 3
Thickness = 5
Thickness = 7
Theoretical K
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
For every distance between the holes rows c, the number of elements and
the equivalent maximum stress were noted down. The first set of data
concerned the plate with a thickness of 3 mm (Table 1 in the appendix): as
it can be noticed the maximum stress magnitude was calculated to be
ranging from 4.78 at 0 to 4.80 at 60.95. Excluding the second decimal
variation of 0.02, the magnitude can be considered constant throughout
the parameters variation. This happens because the holes are very distant
from each other, presenting a relative smaller diameter compared to the
distance b and they dont affect each other with the stresses: if they were
happening to be closer the stress would have appeared to increase with
the decrease of c (in this case, minimum at the angle of 60.95 and
maximum at the angle of 0).
In order to calculate the practical values of Ktg (Formula 1) the nominal
stress is needed and it was calculated as follow:
(l( d holes n ) ) t
1200
nom = =
=1.8181 GPa
( 0.25( 0.006 5 ) ) 0.005 1000000
The second set of data sees the increment of thickness to 5 mm. As the
graph in Fig. 8 shows, the value of the gross stress concentration factor
remains the same as the previous configuration; what can be noted from
Table 2 is that the nominal stress has a lower value equals to 1.09 GPa
and the actual equivalent stress has decreased to 2.9 GPa.
This behavior for the maximum equivalent stress magnitude and nominal
stress can be found in the plate that presents a thickness of 7 mm; it
decreases to 2.09 GPa and 0.779 GPa respectively whilst the value of Ktg
stays once again more or less constant.
What can be seen then from Fig. 8 is that the stress concentration factor is
not affected by the variation of the thickness.
The theoretical line that is presented has been extrapolated from the
Petersons Stress Concentration Factors curve (Peterson, R.E. Stress
Concentration Factor). According to the parameters given, the ratio l/d
was calculated to be 8.333; the theoretical line for the specific problem
was then lying between two lines present on the same graph; l/d = 5 and
l/d = 10. With an interpolation process the correct line suitable for the
analyzed geometry was found. Of course the values that define the line
are the net stress concentration values (Ktg). Since we needed the gross
ones the following reversed formula was used for angles smaller than 60:
K tg=
K tn
2d
1(
cos)
l
60 :
K tn
d
1( )
l
cost and the use of materials, the function of t can be minimized although
maintaining enough safe factor range.
CONCLUSIONS
The use of Ansys software package as a tool for Finite Element Analysis is
proven to be very useful and gives very good approximations of results. In
a nowadays market, always moving towards fast, the use of these kind of
analysis on concept or improvement stages set standards of time saving,
cost cutting, and better quality of the final product.
With the experiment that has been carried out the following conclusions
has been reached:
-
If the holes are small and they are separated from a long distance,
the Equivalent maximum stress doesnt change with the decrease of
the rows angle of staggered holes. In contrary, closer holes that
influence each other make the magnitude of the stress increase.
In addition the closer the holes get to the edge of the plate and the
more the chances of failure.
The edges of the holes are the parts that withstand the highest
stress.
The different between the theoretical values and the practical one
can be considered acceptable (7.7 % off).
APPENDIX
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thickn
ess
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
Ang
le
Number Of
Elements
0
21.
8
30.
96
38.
66
45
50.
19
54.
46
57.
99
60.
95
Equivalent
Stress
22771
4.7833
10
22801
4.89
15
22812
4.9523
20
22812
4.9523
25
22868
4.8704
30
22859
4.8497
35
22837
4.8275
40
23005
4.8144
45
22909
4.8064
Nominal
Stress
K
1.8181818 2.6308
18
15
1.8181818
18 2.6895
1.8181818 2.7237
18
65
1.8181818 2.7237
18
65
1.8181818 2.6787
18
2
1.8181818 2.6673
18
35
1.8181818 2.6551
18
25
1.8181818 2.6479
18
2
1.8181818 2.6435
18
2
Thickn
ess
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Ang
le
0
21.
8
30.
96
38.
66
45
50.
19
54.
46
57.
99
Number Of
Elements
Equivalent
Stress
23275
2.8694
10
23293
2.9316
15
22812
2.968
20
22840
2.9379
25
22868
2.9184
30
22859
2.9061
35
22837
2.8926
40
23005
2.8853
Nominal
Stress
K
1.0909090 2.6302
91
83
1.0909090
91 2.6873
1.0909090 2.7206
91
67
1.0909090 2.6930
91
75
1.0909090
91 2.6752
1.0909090 2.6639
91
25
1.0909090 2.6515
91
5
1.0909090 2.6448
91
58
60.
95
45
22909
2.8806
1.0909090
91
2.6405
5
Thickne
ss
Angl
e
22783
2.0463
21.8
30.9
6
38.6
6
10
22801
2.0905
15
22812
2.117
20
22840
2.0946
45
50.1
9
54.4
6
57.9
9
60.9
5
25
22868
2.0808
30
22859
2.0719
35
22837
2.0619
40
23005
2.0575
45
22909
2.0543
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
Number Of
Elements
Equivalent
Stress
Nominal
Stress
K
0.7792207 2.6260
79
85
0.7792207 2.6828
79
08
0.7792207 2.7168
79
17
0.7792207 2.6880
79
7
0.7792207 2.6703
79
6
0.7792207 2.6589
79
38
0.7792207 2.6461
79
05
0.7792207 2.6404
79
58
0.7792207 2.6363
79
52
REFERENCES
[1] Pikley, W. and Pikley D., Petersons Stress Concentration Factors
[2] Wang, B. (2013), ME3602 FEA Lecture Notes, Finite Element Analysis in
Engineering Design
[3] Cover Image Courtesy of Barair System Limited:
http://www.barair.co.uk/