Pre-Stress

fernandezpelayo

It is possible to apply a pre-stress in MecWAY?

I saw the non-linear static calculus in the manual where this topic is mention but I don't find any application example.

I want to pre-stress a truss element (like a cable) to show students the difference in stiffness behaviour in simple structures.

I can introduce equivalent forces of a "tricky" effect with temperature but I wonder if there is the option in Mecway to introduce the pre-stress directly.

Thanks in advantage

Victor

It isn't a special feature - just apply the load that causes the prestress as well as the other loads with the Nonlinear Static 3D analysis type. To show the difference between prestress on and off, you can suppress/unsuppress that load, or define it as a table so that it goes to zero after some time. If you do it that way, you also need to turn on Quasi-static in Analysis settings and set some times.

There's an example in the manual called SaggingCable.liml which shows this effect for a cable that has zero bending strength other than its prestress so it applies the prestress load first, then a gravity load begins at a later time.

There is a prestressed axial spring element in Materials -> Mechanical -> Spring but it's not available for nonlinear analysis so it won't show stress stiffening.