EPM717 Plate FE Analysis: Coursework Brief

You are asked to analyse an irregular reinforced concrete slab, illustrated below.

The thickness of the slab is 200mm throughout. The slab is supported by a vertical reaction at
A and it is fully restrained (that is, full fixity) along edge B. The dimensions shown above are
all in metres. All edges are parallel to the global x, y or z axes. Note the rectangular opening
in the slab.

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Your task is to carry out 5 FE analyses, providing predictions of the deflections beneath the
two loaded points using the following three finite element meshes:

(I) a 3d continuum analysis using 8-noded hexahedral elements

(II) an analysis using the minimum number of 9-noded plate elements

(III) your most detailed analysis using 9-noded plate elements, with local mesh refinement

The mass density is assumed to be 2.35M g.m−3 , however you will not be including the self-
weight in the two plate finite element analyses. That is, you will incorporate the self weight
and the two point loads (P and Q) in the first analysis (Mesh I). You will run a second analysis
using Mesh I with only the point loads acting (that is, do not include the self weight). In the
Mesh II and Mesh III analyses you will only consider the action of the two vertical point loads
(P and Q). A Young’s modulus of 35GP a is to be used, together with a Poisson’s ratio of 0.2
(the latter elastic parameter is only relevant for the hexahedral element analyses).
In your pdf report, you are to provide

(i) Matlab images of the undeformed and deformed meshes for each analysis (total of 18/100
marks). Be sure to choose an appropriately oriented view when capturing the Matlab
image.

(ii) a neatly drawn, sufficiently large, hand-sketch of Mesh II showing the global coordinate
axes together with all node and element numbers (20/100 marks).

(iii) a listing of coord, etopol and bc for each of the three meshes (total of 24/100 marks).
Ensure that you use an equally-spaced font such as courier (no smaller than size 8) and
remove unnecessary line spaces when printing the input data.

(iv) a list of displacements (giving the correct units) under the point loads obtained from each
analysis and your assessment of the relative accuracy of those results. For Mesh I you
are to give two maximum displacements: one resulting from the self weight plus the point
loads (P and Q), and a second resulting solely from the action of the two point loads,
without any self-weight (18/100 marks)

(v) a preliminary consideration from your FE analyses, as to whether you consider the slab
to be under, or over-designed (10/100 marks)

(vi) a comparison of the maximum displacements obtained from Mesh III when (a) support
A is present and (b) when that support is removed. Comment on the effectiveness of this
support (total of 10/100 marks).

The coursework is to be submitted via Moodle by Monday 11th January 2021. The pdf sub-
mission must not exceed 12 pages in total (any pages beyond the twelvth will be ignored). A
significant proportion of the marks will be deducted if the submission is unclear, poorly-written,
not set-out in a logical manner or sufficient care has not been taken when producing the figures.
If the wrong units are given for the results, then this will dramatically affect the marks obtained
for questions (iv), (v) and (vi).

Professor Roger Crouch 08.01.20