I'm trying to model the stresses on a plate used in part of a crane. It's a triangular plate with 1 hole at the top end and two at the bottom.
Attempting to make the simulation as realistic as possible I created the assembly with the pins that connect through the holes in the plate. Setting the component contactss to no penetration, since bonded would be unrealistic I'd imagine?
The only problem is, along with extremely long simulation times for simple geometry, that it seems the higher the mesh density of the mesh control I apply around the holes, the more the von mises stress seems to tend off towards infinity.
Am I doing something wrong here? Any advice for modelling this situation would be great.
Hi Jason,
Do you actually need to model the pins to transfer the force to the plate or could you just accomplish this with a force or bearing load? I ask because obviously if you can get rid of the pins then you will not need the No Penetration contact and solve times would decrease dramatically. If the load from the pins is in plane with the hole in the plate using a bearing load can often work well to replicate the force.
Sounds like you have a stress concentration so the more refined you make your mesh the higher the stress is going to get. Unfortunately you do not have a lot of tools at your disposal to manage the mesh besides refining it but getting rid of the pins if you can could help. Also, have you tried using the curvature based mesher? This will concentrate the mesh around the holes automatically and may vary the mesh enough to help get rid of the concentrations. Be aware though that this mesher can gobble up more resources and increases solve times if you get it to refined.
Ryan W.