FEA Quiz
Check your FEA knowledge with this quiz:
If you had one steel and one aluminum cylinder of equal cross-sectional areas (1 sq-in) and both cylinders are loaded with a force of 100 lbf, which cylinder will have the higher stress? By how much would you expect the stress values to differ?
You have just meshed a solid CAD piece of geometry using 10-node Tetrahedral elements and have applied a fully fixed constraint (all translations (TX, TY, and TZ) and all rotations (RX, RY, and RZ) are fixed) to one node of the structure. What action is enforced by the RX, RY, and RZ constraints? Would you expect the structure to be sufficiently constrained for a static stress analysis? If not, how many nodes would have to be constrained to "fix" the model for a stress analysis?
What material property data is required for linear, elastic static analysis?
You have applied a uniform internal pressure to a cylinder and would like to check your work. You then use your FEA pre-processor to perform a sum-of-forces calculation. What value would you expect to be returned by the sum-of-forces calculation?
You have just finished a rather complicated linear, elastic, static stress analysis using a low cost 1018 steel with a yield stress of 36,000 psi. The peak stress in the structure is 52,000 psi. The engineering group has decided to use a more expensive AISI 4340 steel with a yield stress of around 80,000 psi. Upon implementing this new material into your FEA database, how would you expect the analysis results to change?
What is the mathematical description of symmetry as used in the FEA world? How many planes-of-symmetry could be used for a uniformly loaded plate with a hole at its center?
How would you apply symmetry in a thermal analysis? In other words, what boundary conditions would you apply?
You have a disk structure with a hole at its center (let us say that it is 12 inches in diameter and 0.1 inch thick). The center of the plate (the hole perimeter) is fixed and a displacement load is applied around the outer edges of the plate. The structure is similar to a "clutch plate" used in an auto transmission. The displacement load is normal to the disk creating large bending stresses within the disk. If your goal is lower the stresses wtihin the disk, would you make the disk thicker or thinner? Secondly, would it make sense to switch to a lower modulus material (say switching from steel to aluminum)?
A buckling analysis has been requested of this simple C-channel structure. For clarity, here's a picture of the structure with the applied load:
You have just run this very complicated linear analysis with several different type of materials and linear contact behavior between two of the bodies within your structure. Upon post-processing the results you see that the von Mises stress scalar ranges from a very high value (say 135,000 psi) to a low value that is negative (say -57,000 psi). What would the analysis results be telling you?
In modeling a very long I-Beam (6" flanges with a 10" deep web) using cuad plate elements (never those nasty 3-node triangular plate elements), you would like to use the absolute minimun number of plate elements through the web since this I-Beam is part of a much larger model. How many elements would you use through the cross-section of the web for an accurate deflection analysis (say within 5% of an analytical solution)? Would you bump up the number of elements if you desired higher accuracy stress numbers or not?
Question: When your FEA buddy Sara boasts about her low Jacobians; is your response "Way to go Sara" or "What was that again... Jacobian what?"
Mechanical Engineering SOLUTIONS