Good evening all,
I am trying to analyze a part, simulating wind pressure on a large surface.
I have an aluminum extrusion, which is attached to a foam board.
The aluminum has a hinge which attaches to another piece.
So, the hinge would be fixed and the rest of the part is free to move. I want to apply pressure to the board, and I am concerned about the aluminum hinge failing.
First issue, my mesh ratio is too high, and I'm not sure if it is causing the following issue.
I want to apply 30-40 psf to an 8'x8' board. Then trasfer the load onto the extrusion.
For example I applied a force of ~500lb (made it up), but this displacement is only .00106 inches.
The material is 6061-T6 and the thickness of that area is only 0.09"
So it seems to me it's incorrect.
Hi Josh,
It looks like the aspect ratio of you mesh elements is very high which would lead to a stress plot just like what you are seeing here now. Stress results for a solid mesh on a thin walled object start looking normal once you have 2 elements across the thickness. As you might expect this would make your analysis have many more mesh elements than it presently has and take much longer to solve. Just looking at the screen shots of your model you have a good candidate for using shell elements for your mesh. That would yield better stress results at the same speed (or, more probably, faster). This document goes over how to define a shell mesh onto your existing solid geometry (GoEngineer - Siimulation: Definte Shell by Selected Face) for reference.