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Modal Analysis of a tapered beam

Submitted by shiva masana on

Hello everyone

I need modeshapes for a tapered beam, so I am using Ansys. By going through the tutorials I found that a beam can be modeled by creating a line and meshing it using Beam elements and assigning real constants. How can I use the beam elements for a tapered beam where  the real constants are not constant. I tried to use tapered beam element but is of no use as it the created all elements of same real constants creating a profile similar to a hack saw. 

Can anyone please help me how to mesh a tapered beam.

 
Awaiting the reply....

 
Shiva Masana

Hi Shiva,

 I have written a short paper that illustrates how to obtain the stiffness matrix for a tapered I-beam.  The principles described in the paper may be used to describe any beam that has nonconstant cross-section as a function of position along the axis of the beam.  Using this method you may numerically calculate the stiffness matrix of a tapered beam.  Then construct a mass matrix and finally find eigenvalues and modeshapes by the standard techniques.

 The method I explain is not usually carefully explained in matrix structural analysis books or journal articles.  I have references at the end of the paper where bits and pieces of this method are explained.  But, primarily I learned this in graduate school.

This would require you to program the technique in something like matlab.

 You may find the paper at the following location:  http://people.wallawalla.edu/~louie.yaw/structuralanalysis/taperframe.p…

 I hope this helps.

 regards,

Louie

Fri, 06/19/2009 - 18:43 Permalink

Dear Shiva

You can use BEAM elements by imposing different values of moment of inertia in each descritized cross section.

You may want to write a Macro in APDL (Ansys Parametric Design Language) and impose different real constants to each elmement using (*Do, *ENDDO) commands.

In this way, the geometry is the same and you can not distinguish it in ANSYS GUI but the tapered beam is considered in ANSYS calculations.

 Best Regards,

******************************************

 Ahmad Rafsanjani Abbasi

Graduate Student School of Mechanical Engineering

Acoustics Research Laboratory

Iran University of Science and Technology

Narmak 16844, Tehran, Iran

********************************

Fri, 06/26/2009 - 06:10 Permalink

Hi Shiva,

U go through Verification Manual34 (VM34) in ansys help.  Ansys script is also given there for that example using different beam elements. If u still dont get mail me. thechenna123 [at] gmail.com.

Wed, 07/29/2009 - 18:57 Permalink