Hello!
First time posting, hope you find my project interesting
I'm designing a custom playground for a local park and need to calculate the tensions in some support cables.
The internal structure consists of a rigid half-torus held in position by chains and cables in tension:
The half-torus will be covered in netting, allowing children to climb on it. Depending on the location of the children, the center of gravity of the basket system will move, causing the tensions in the cables to change:
I have been struggling to solve the free-body-diagram system of equations in Matlab.
I saw this video where springs were used to model tension cables. Would it be possible to set the basket to "rigid-body mode," add the springs, and view the reaction fores in Solidworks simulation?
I can't even find the option for "rigid-body" in SW15. How to I begin setting up this problem?
Thanks,
Martin,
very interesting problem.
If you modeled your frame as structural members everything will be considered as beam elements. I'm not sure you can treat beams as rigid bodies.
It works for sure with solid mesh: all you need to do is right clicking on a body in the simulation tree and choose " make rigid".
In your case, if you want to use beams and considerazione them ad rigid you might define a custom material with very high young modulus (2 e+6 or 2e+7 MPa).
Spring connectors can't be user with beams but only with solids and shells, you will have to find a workaround with mixed meshing.
Another option would be modeling the cables as beams and make them trusses. Problem is that trusses resist compression: you would need to go non linear then and define a custom material that would resist only tension.
Alex