Good Afternoon all,

I am hoping that someone can point me to where I am going wrong with my simulation.  Some background first. We have manufactured an aluminium bracket from three parts that is hung over an edge (for example the gunnel on a boat) and clamped off using two bolts.

We have received feedback previously that the bracket warps with too much force.  This has since been rectified and is no longer an issue for the product.  But since we have started to get into simulations we thought that this was an excellent opportunity to test the simulation software as we have tested real world examples of the parts.  

Unfortunately, I cannot get the simulation to achieve the results that I get on the bench with the actual parts.  So, I figure I must be doing something wrong.

I have knocked up a basic representation of the part (its three pieces of machined aluminium bolted together, I have fixed the left hand and top pieces as this is generally how they would be setup (ie. they are hard against the gunnel) and the right hand piece has the bolts going through it and pushing against the gunnel. 

Now I have applied a force of 10N pushing back against that face and it moves 0.017mm, as I know from real world examples, this is no where near what I achieved (I tightened the bolts to 20Nm with a torque wrench and it had moved by 17mm.

Any ideas or information would be appreciated.  Thank you.