I am a hobbyist who finds the interface of Mecway very user friendly.
Attached is an attempt I have made at analysing a truss member.
Geometry is a square hollow section (pipe) 65mm by 65mm by 4mm wall thickness.
Steel is 450 mpa
The member is connected to the panel point by an 18mm clevis pin at each end.
The distance from centre of pin to centre of pin is 1360mm
The member will be subject to a maximum load in compression of 32Kn.
I have four questions:
1. Have I set my model up correctly?
2. If so is the displacement of 0.233mm in Y correct?
3. If so what if any is the factor of safety?
4. If the answer to question 1 is "no" can one of you guys show me how to go about things please?
Thanks in advance
Comments
1. Model Setup:
I have already learnt quite a lot from them, and I will examine them and the examples you have kindly provided, in more detail over the weekend.
Thanks again!
According to my new spreadsheet could be even less.
SHS 65x4 S450.
Pcr (Euler)=635KN
Ncr ( EC3 )=635 KN
Nb,Rd=261 KN (Cold Formed- Curve c )
Nb,Rd=347 KN (Hot Formed- Curve a0)
In any case Nc,Ed=32KN it is very far from buckling collapse.
@cwharpe - I had to have a look at your files - I have wandered into Alladin's cave! No doubt I will have more questions but the first two that come to mind are:-
1. Why have you applied a force of 10kN to the midpoint of the member?
2. Also a question for both you and @disla - can you give me in laymens terms an explanation of the time lapse feature. I think I understand that things won't always buckle or crush immediately ( I have seen real life examples of this) but how is this applied/set up in the software?
You might find the following examples helpful: Reference Mecway Manual ex. 11.7,11.8,11.9. Mecway Tutorial ex. 2.11.
1. The (10kN) lateral force is a constant, small perturbance to get the buckling mode shape started in the otherwise perfect Non-Linear model. Actually, I had mistyped. They usually want that maybe .001 to .0001 (or less) times the maximum load. Note if you suppress my perturb load and run the N-L model again, you will see no buckling at all.
2. I only speak laymen. The N-L analysis ramps through the loading by discrete divisions, peforming a static analysis at each step to the previous step's deformed position until reaching the full load value. Proceeding this way reveals subtle differences between the full-load-slam of Static 3D vs. incremental N-L analysis. (You might test this with a simple fixed cantilever.)
~Good Luck.
You are absolutely right. It makes no sense to skimp one or two millimeters of thickness on such a small part. You never know where an unforeseen load may come from.
I've seen workers on site pulling with a tractel tied to the column to position the equipment into place.
It depends on the design code but usually the safety margin is normalized. That translates into the following formula.