Lab Manual

Finite Element Methods Lab

(ANSYS Software)
Instructor Name: Engr. Adnan Rasheed

Student Name: Muhammad Mubeen

Roll #: MEEN201101022

KHWAJA FAREED
IMME, KFUEIT UNIVERSITY
Rahim Yar Khan OF ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION Page
TECHNOLOGY
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Lab 04 FEM Lab

Lab Session 04

Cantilever Beam with Point Load

Objective

To find the deformation in a cantilever beam with a point load application at the free end of
beam, numerically and analytically

Problem Statement
To calculate the maximum deflection of a 6 m long cantilever beam which has fixed support at
one end. If this beam is loaded with point load of 15 kN at the free end. Young’s modulus of
the material is 2.8e+10 N/m2 while cross section of beam is square 0.346 m x 0.346 m, do
simulation on ANSYS and compare results with analytical calculations.

Input data
A beam is drawn in with 6 m length and 346 mm square cross section. (Suggest the material
name here, by your own finding)

Procedure
1. Open Static Structure Analysis form left toolbox of Analysis Systems
2. Then double click on engineering data to add a required material, i.e. mild steel.
3. Now again in work bench, open geometry in Design Modeler and draw according to
given data. Then save it and exit the modeler.
4. Now mesh the model with default mesh sizing and add named selections if required.
Then refine the mesh sizing and save the project.
5. Apply boundary conditions and then the loadings conditions as given. Then save the
project.
6. Now click on solution and select the stress, deformation, then click solve.
7. It will show the ANSYS analysis of stress and deformation in geometry window. The
minimum and maximum values will be shown on side with colors.
8. Save the images of all analysis and save the project report.

Analytical Solution
Start the ANSYS workbench in your PC. From the Analysis solution on the left side use Static
Structural Analysis and drag it to the main screen. Save the project. Select and open the
engineering data and edit it according to the data in the given statement as shown in figure
below.

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Lab 04 FEM Lab

Figure 1

Close the engineering data and open the design modeler. Firstly, set the units to MGS
(millimeter, gram, second) system. From the sketch, select rectangle and draw it. Apply equal
length constraints and dimension it 0.346 m x 0.346 m.

Figure 2

Use the extrude command to extrude it up to 6000mm and click generate to create it 3D. Now,
create a point at its center with the help of sketch planes and cross section as shown in figure.
Save it and open the Mechanical APDL. After checking geometry, now generate a mesh at

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Lab 04 FEM Lab

default size. Now the generate the new mesh at 50mm element size with respect to the
minimum boundary thickness.

Figure 3

Now apply the point force at the middle point generated already with the help of sketch planes.
The magnitude of force will be 15000N. X and Z components of the force will be zero and Y
component will have the magnitude. Negative sign is used to determine the direction of the
force. One end of the beam is fixed and one has displacement in z direction. i.e., simply
supported beam.

Figure 4

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Lab 04 FEM Lab

From the solution tab insert, total deformation for the solutions.

Figure 5

Figure 6

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Lab 04 FEM Lab

Figure 7

Figure 8

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Lab 04 FEM Lab

Figure 9

Numerical solution

Maximum deflection calculation

The maximum deflection of a cantilever beam subjected to a point load be calculated using
the following formula.

𝑃𝐿3
𝛿𝑚𝑎𝑥 =
3𝐸𝐼

Where:

𝛿𝑚𝑎𝑥 = maximum deflection

P = uniformly distributed load

L = length of the beam

E = Young's modulus of the material

I = moment of inertia of the beam's cross-section

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Lab 04 FEM Lab

Young's Modulus

Young's modulus is a measure of the stiffness of a material. It represents the ratio of stress to
strain within the elastic region of deformation. For the given material, the Young's modulus is
28000 N/mm².

Calculation of Maximum Deflection Using the formula mentioned above, the maximum
deflection of the beam can be calculated. Substituting the given values

W = 15000 N

L = 6000 mm

E = 28000 Mpa

Cross-section = 346 mm

The moment of inertia (I) of a square cross-section can be calculated as.

𝑏4
𝐼=
12
where b is the side length of the square cross-section.

3464
𝐼=
12
𝐼 = 1194326721 𝑚𝑚4

5 × 5000 × 15004
𝛿𝑚𝑎𝑥 =
3 × 28000 × 1194326721

𝜹𝒎𝒂𝒙 = 𝟑𝟐. 𝟐𝟗𝟓𝟓 𝒎𝒎

Error

32.295 − 32.294
=
32.295
𝑬𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓 = 𝟎. 𝟎𝟎𝟑%

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Lab 04 FEM Lab

Conclusions
After compare the numerical and analytical result we conclude that there is minor error in
theoretical and analytical results 0.003% this can be reduced by reducing the size of mesh.

This such a minor error is due to I select the whole face of beam during Appling fixed support
did help to reduce the error.

For the maximum deflection, the calculated error of 0.003% suggests that there is less than half
a percent difference between the numerical (ANSYS) and analytical values. Similarly, for the
maximum stress, the error of 0.03% indicates an even smaller deviation between the numerical
and analytical values.

These errors are within an acceptable range for many engineering applications. However, it's
essential to consider the specific requirements and tolerances of the project when evaluating
the significance of these errors. In some cases, further refinement of the analytical model or
experimental setup may be necessary to reduce errors further.

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