Designers intro to FEA, part III

October 12, 2006

Paul Dvorak

In the previous FE Update (Sept. 12), Design Generator President Paul Kurowski,
remarked that the four most common types of analyses are linear static, modal, linear
buckling, and steady-state thermal.

Senior Editor

The first buckling mode of a T beam under a bending load.

Temperature distribution and resultant heat flux are typical output data requested in the
steady-state thermal analysis.

Modes of vibration calculated in modal analysis are prerequisites to vibration analysis

using the modal superposition method.
Combined transient thermal and linear static analyses allow calculating thermal stresses.

In the previous FE Update (Sept. 12), Design Generator President Paul Kurowski,
remarked that the four most common types of analyses are linear static, modal, linear
buckling, and steady-state thermal. Linear static and modal analysis was covered in the
previous installment. This article continues with linear bucking and thermal simulations.

LINEAR-BUCKLING ANALYSIS

Like modal analysis, buckling analysis is neither dynamic nor static. "Buckling analysis
calculates a buckling load and associated shapes," says Kurowski. "The analysis is
similar to modal analysis. It finds eigenvalues of the sum of stiffness and stress matrixes."

Beams buckle as a result of losing stress stiffness that is induced by compressive loads.
"The resultant structure stiffness drops to zero. Even though software can calculate any
number of buckling modes, engineers need only find the first mode and its associated
load magnitude. Buckling in the first mode often causes catastrophic failure or renders
the structure unusable even if it may still be able to hold the load in its buckled shape.
Higher buckling modes are usually of no practical importance," says Kurowski.

Buckling analysis, more precisely called linear buckling analysis, calculates a buckling
load and shape but does not offer quantitative information on the deformed, post buckling
shape. "The buckling mode presents the shape of structure after buckling but says nothing
about the actual magnitude of deformation. Nonlinear buckling analysis must be used to
study post buckling effects," he says.

To obtain the buckling-load magnitude, multiply or divide the applied load (this depends
on the particular FEA program) by the bucking-load factor generated by the FEA
program. This is closely analogous to modal analysis that provides information on modes
of vibration (frequency and shape) but not on the actual displacement magnitude.

There are several reasons why buckling factors are nonconservative and must be
interpreted with caution. "For instance, finite element models are stiffer than
corresponding real-life structures because they are discretized or meshed. Also, models
represent geometry without imperfections. In addition, loads and supports are applied
with perfect accuracy, without offsets. Support elasticity is often ignored. In reality, a
load is always applied with an offset, geometry always has imperfections, and supports
are never perfectly rigid," he says.

STEADY-STATE THERMAL

Thermal analysis, more properly called steady-state thermal analysis, calculates a steady-
state temperature field that establishes itself under applied thermal loads and boundary
conditions. "'Steady state' implies that sufficient time has lapsed since the loads were
applied and that the heat flow has stabilized. Analysis of a steady-state heat transfer
knows nothing of the initial temperatures or of how long it took for the heat flow to reach
stable conditions. It can take seconds, hours, or days to reach the steady state," says
Kurowski.

As for thermal-analysis results, they are most often presented in the form of temperature
distribution and resultant heat-flux plots. "Temperatures are scalars making them easy to
show in a fringe plot. Resultant heat fluxes are vectors with three components,
conveniently shown either as a fringe plot or a vector plot," he adds.

FEA, of course, describes heat flow by conduction inside a solid body. "The heat entering
and exiting the solid body are defined as boundary conditions such as prescribed
temperatures, heat flux, convection coefficients, or radiation emissivity. FEA cannot
differentiate between natural and forced convection. The distinction is only possible by
using different values of convection coefficients. Flow of fluid surrounding the solid
body on which thermal analysis is performed cannot be modeled," says Kurowski.

COMBINING ANALYSES

Projects often require using more than one type of analysis. For example, a steady-state
thermal analysis can be combined with a linear-static structural analysis to calculate
thermal stress. "Analyses are performed sequentially, so that thermal analysis provides
results for static analysis," he says.

Other frequently encountered examples of sequential analyses combine linear vibration

analysis, which uses data provided by modal analysis. "Results from modal analysis, such
as natural frequencies and modal shapes, allow for discretization of the dynamic response
of structure so the response can be analyzed as a superposition of responses of several
single-degree-of-freedom systems. This approach is called the modal superposition
method and is effective for solving linear vibration problems," he adds.
ADVANCED ANALYSES

In terms of complexity and cost, says Kurowski, the simplest analysis is linear static and
transient thermal analysis, followed by linear dynamic and steady-state thermal analysis.
"Modeling any nonlinear behavior significantly complicates analysis. Advanced analyses
may involve modeling nonlinear and dynamic problems such as crash analysis, air-bag
deployment, and ballistic protection analysis. Those analysis capabilities are not available
in general-purpose FEA software and require highly specialized software and a high-level
expertise to produce reliable results," he says.