WARSAW UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY THE FACULTY OF POWER AND AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING

MECHANICS OF THIN-WALLED STRUCTURES EXERCISE 1

Student: Tianguang LU

Date: 16.03.2013

Introduction The purpose of the exercise was to conduct a mechanical analysis of thin walled conical structure using with Patran/Nastran package and investigate the influence of the steel ring in thin-walled structure.

Creating structural model The first step to obtain a model for structure analysis was to design geometry and mesh of the object. The final geometry should be a conical shell structure with a beam element a steel ring (Fig.1). It was received by drafting a curve, then creating mesh seeds on the curve and rotates the curve around the axis, which means that the grids of mesh were also created.

Fig.1. Final Model with Mesh of the Conical

Next step was to add loads and boundary conditions onto created model. The conical structure was fixed at greater radius, therefore the condition was set as (0, 0, 0) for both translation and rotation vector. Force acting on the steel ring of the structure was set as 2

nodal force of value 2000 N in -Y-direction (Fig.2). Material properties were set for all elements the conical shell was aluminum (Ealuminium=73000 MPa) with thickness of 1mm, the ring was made of steel (E1steel=200000 MPa).

Fig.2. Loads/BCs of the Conical

Analysis Linear analysis was conducted in Nastran and the results were accessed in Patran. Post processing of the result consisted of a quick plot of displacements translational as fringe results (Fig.3) and of a quick plot of stress tensor in Z componet of axial stresses (Fig.4). Another part of analysis was to graph stress tensor at the top layer in Z direction for axial set of nodes next to the fixed nodes (Fig.5) and the shear stress (in XY direction.Fig.6).

Fig.3. Translational Displacements in Y Direction with Esteel=2e5

Fig.4. Stress Tensor in Z Component with Esteel=2e5

Fig.5. Stress Tensor at the Top Layer in Z Component with Esteel=2e5

Fig.6. Shear Stress in XY Component with Esteel=2e5

The task was to conduct the same analysis for two additional cases, where the elastic modulus of the steel ring was changed: in second case to E=2000000 (E1steel*10) and in third case to E=20000000 (E1steel*100). 5

Fig.7. Translational Displacements in Y Direction with Esteel=2e6

Fig.8. Stress Tensor in Z Component with Esteel=2e5

Fig.9. Stress Tensor at the Top Layer in Z Component with Esteel=2e6

Fig.10. Shear Stress in XY Component with Esteel=2e6

Fig.11. Translational Displacements in Y Direction with Esteel=2e7

Fig.12. Stress Tensor in Z Component with Esteel=2e7 8

Fig.13. Stress Tensor at the Top Layer in Z Component with Esteel=2e7

Fig.14. Shear Stress in XY Component with Esteel=2e7

Conclusions In the first case, the maximum displacement was 1.89mm (inwards), situated on the smallest radius of the conical model. The maximum Z component of stress tensor at the top layer of the model was of value 30MPa at point where close to the conical models fixed bottom. And the maximum XY component of shear stress was of value 0.75Mpa In the second and third cases show that increasing the elastic modulus of the ring decreases the maximum translational displacement (in second case to 0.62mm, in third case to 0.183 mm). Moreover it decreases the values of maximum stress tensor (Z component) to around 13.5MPa and 7MPa for second and third case respectively. About the maximum shear stress (XY component) was decreased to 0.4MPa and 0.3MPa in the second and third cases respectively. The regions of maximum displacement and stresses for these two cases are similarly situated as in the first case. Increasing elastic modulus as greatly as in the third case (E=E1steel*100) reduces Z component of the stresses and the XY component of the shear stresses in the part of the model in front of the steel ring even to the value close to zero (Fig.15 & Fig.16). The character of the relationships stayed the same.

Fig.15. Three Cases of the Stress Tensor at the Top Layer in Z Component

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Fig.16 Three cases of the Shear Stress in XY Component

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