Riga Technical University
Department of Engineering Mechanics and Strength of Materials
RTU Course: "Automation of Strength Calculations for Constructions of Mechanical Engineering"
Prof. A. Janushevskis
FEA study of a steel column
Company: RTU - Riga Technical University
Date: 15-06-2005
In this task will be analysed a composite structure made of a column (ISO Beam SB100x8, height = 1000 mm) with 2 traverses and 2 ribs welded to a base plate. Steel grade of the construction is AISI 1020. On the system are acting a compressive axial force of 25 KN at the higher end of the column and 2 force components, of 0.5 KN each, acting transversely to flange and wall creating appropriate bending moments. The plate is supported by a concrete bed so it's restrained in the vertical direction and is fixed by two bolts. The purpose of the work is to analyze the whole system with a FEA software (CosmosWORKS for SolidWORKS) in order to minimize the dimension of the base plate (the thickness) to ensure the pressure no more than 10MPa on the concrete bed.
Three different kind of analysis have been done on the model: stress, frequency and buckling. Stress analysis has been done first in order to evaluate the stress in the structure and minimize its value on the concrete bed to 10 MPa. The base's thickness at the beginning was 10 mm after the study it results that a thickness of 8 mm is enough to keep the value in that range. The reported result are so based on the optimized model. Frequency and buckling give other useful information about the construction especially buckling's value that must be compared with the security factor (FOS) gained from stress analisys to see what come first (if buckling or structure's collapse).
| No. |
Part Name |
Material |
Mass |
Volume |
|---|
| 1 |
Base-1 |
AISI 1020 |
10.3131 lb |
36.135 in^3 |
| 2 |
Beam-1 |
AISI 1020 |
18.9842 lb |
66.5166 in^3 |
| 3 |
Rib-2 |
AISI 1020 |
0.452655 lb |
1.58601 in^3 |
| 4 |
Rib-3 |
AISI 1020 |
0.452655 lb |
1.58601 in^3 |
| 5 |
Traverse-1 |
AISI 1020 |
1.59535 lb |
5.58977 in^3 |
| 6 |
Traverse-2 |
AISI 1020 |
1.59535 lb |
5.58977 in^3 |
Restraint
| Restraint-1 <Base-1> |
on 1 Face(s) with respect to reference geometry Piano frontale with displacement 0 cm normal to reference plane |
| Description: |
|
| Restraint-2 <Base-1> |
on 2 Face(s) fixed. |
| Description: |
|
Load
| Force-3 <Beam-1> |
on 1 Face(s) apply force 500 N along plane Dir 2Piano frontale using uniform distribution |
| Description: |
|
| Force-2 <Beam-1> |
on 1 Face(s) apply force 500 N along plane Dir 1 Piano frontale using uniform distribution |
| Description: |
|
| Force-1 <Beam-1> |
on 1 Face(s) apply normal force 25000 N using uniform distribution |
| Description: |
|
Mesh Information
| Mesh Type: |
Solid mesh |
| Mesher Used: |
Standard |
| Automatic Transition: |
Off |
| Smooth Surface: |
On |
| Jacobian Check: |
4 Points |
| Element Size: |
0.012426 m |
| Tolerance: |
0.00062129 m |
| Quality: |
High |
| Number of elements: |
14697 |
| Number of nodes: |
29538 |
Solver Information
| Quality: |
High |
| Solver Type: |
FFEPlus |
Contact state: Touching faces - Bonded
Click the link for the stress analysis' results: STRESS
Click the link for the frequency analysis' results: FREQUENCY
Click the link for the buckling analysis' results: BUCKLING
From all the analysis we can conclude that the optimized basement should have a thickness of 8 mm to fulfill the requirements, as it's shown from the stress case of study. The comparison between the FOS and the LF in the buckling analysis tell us that the structure reach the yielding before the buckling cause 1.7 < 2.83 so the load that must be applied to yield the construction is lower than the one necessary to buckle it.
| Material name: |
AISI 1020 |
| Description: |
|
| Material Source: |
Library files |
| Material Library Name: |
solidworks materials |
| Material Model Type: |
Linear Elastic Isotropic |
| Unit system: |
English (IPS) |
| Property Name |
Value |
|---|
| Elastic modulus |
2.9013e+007 psi |
| Poisson's ratio |
0.29 |
| Shear modulus |
1.117e+007 psi |
| Thermal expansion coefficient |
8.3333e-006 /Fahrenheit |
| Mass density |
0.28541 lb/in^3 |
| Thermal conductivity |
0.0006288 BTU/(in.s.F) |
| Specific heat |
0.10033 Btu/(lb.F) |
| Yield strength |
51000 psi |
| Tensile strength |
61000 psi |
| Compressive strength |
0 psi |