BMM3563/3562 FINITE ELEMENT METHOD LABORATORY

NAME: NURUL ATIQAH BINTI RAZALI

Lecturers

ID NO:
HB12010
SECTION: Dr. Salwani binti Salleh
DATE: 29th March 2014
ACADEMIC WEEK: WEEK 6

Signature:

Evaluation

Name:
Date:
Marks:

TUTORIAL
5. Piston Mechanical CAD Model.
6. Piston Mechanical Event Simulation.
1

What did you learn from this tutorial?

What I have learnt in this tutorial is on how to do the simulation of the given
piston. There are two parts involved in this simulation process. The first part is
we need to follow two simple steps before proceed to the next part which is
Piston Mechanical Event Simulation.. In the first part, the first step is
doing meshing on the piston by using the absolute mesh size of 0.5 inch. After
doing this meshing step, the effect that can be obviously seen is there are
square lines with 0.5 inch on the surface of the piston. After doing meshing,
we need to add three joints to the piston. First, the joint between the piston
and the arm, then a joint between the arm and the crank and the last joint is at
the free end of the crank. After adding all the joints, the second step of the first
part is now completed. At the end of the first part, the object should be exactly
looks like the figure below.

BMM3563/3562 FINITE ELEMENT METHOD LABORATORY

Figure 1 : Piston Mechanical CAD Model.

What I have learnt in the second part is how to choose and set the material
type of the opiston. All CAD parts (bricks) are made of Aluminum 6061-T6;
6061-T651. All joint parts (trusses and beams) are made of Steel (ASTM A36). The joints between the piston and arm and between the arm and crank
are trusses with a cross-sectional area of 1 in 2 .Then we need to apply a
prescribed rotation to the joint at the free end of the crank that will go through
one revolution in 1 second. Then apply X, Y, and Z translational and Y and Z
rotational constraints to the center of the joint at the free end of the crank.
Apply X and Z translational constraints to the large cylindrical surfaces of the
piston. After that, apply an X translational constraint to all surfaces of the
crank. We must specify that an event capture rate of 36. This will produce
results for every 10 degrees of crank rotation (360/36 = 10). For a better
results view, Magnitude command is used, this command has made the
overall piston to be coloured with the pointed value colours according to its
maximum or minimum stress that acts on the crank. The result of the
simulation of the piston can be seen from the figure 2 below.

Figure 2 : Piston Mechanical Event Simulation.

BMM3563/3562 FINITE ELEMENT METHOD LABORATORY

2
How can you apply this tutorial to a real world
problem?

In my opinion, this tutorial can be applied to a real world problem if we know

the correct steps in order to do the simulation of any kind of object. This
simple step will helps you to solve thousand of simple problems regarding on
how to identify the stress on the object and how to apply force on the object.
There are many kind of problems that can be solved by using this tutorial such
as the analysis of the syringe and the stress that involved in the force that act at
the end of an object and also the bicycle pump that use the same concept of the
piston.
3. Propose a simple real world problem where you can
use finit

element analysis similar to the analysis

type done in the tutorial. (Use sketches, figures,

notes etc to explain your proposal.)

Figure 3 : a syringe

A simple real problem where we can use finite element analysis similar to the
analysis type done in the tutorial is a syringe. By looking at the appearance we
can easily identified that the syringe has the identical characteristic with the
problem that has been solved in the tutorial. Syringe had a round beam
element and also, forces need to be applied at the end of the of the syringe.

BMM3563/3562 FINITE ELEMENT METHOD LABORATORY

There is no difference between syringe and the piston. Both Syringe and
piston have their joint at the middle (more or less) of the syringe and the
piston .Roughly we can see that both of syringe and piston have the similar
elements analysis in order to use them.
4. Explain the results obtained from these tutorials.
(Include figures and analysis of the figures)

At the end of the first part, the object should be exactly looks
like the figure below.

Figure 4 : result of the first part

At the end of the first part, the effect that must be obviously seen is there are
square lines with 0.5 inch on the surface of the piston. If the square lines have
a big or small gap that means during meshing process, the mesh size is
wrongly chosen that is too big or too small. To prevent this problem from
happen, do read the instructions properly. While doing this tutorial,you can
rotate the joint at the free end of the crank that will go
through one revolution in 1 second to check whether the joining step
has successfully done or not. If it was done successfully, you can easily rotate
the crank and will easily produce results for every 10 degrees of crank
rotation (360/36 = 10).

BMM3563/3562 FINITE ELEMENT METHOD LABORATORY

At the end of the second part, the object should be exactly looks like the
figure below.

Figure 5 : result of the second part

The difference in colour of the at the crank of the piston indicates that there
are difference in applying the stress according to its maximum or minimum
stress that acts on the crank. The more the part towards the blue colour, the
less the displacement magnitude value. That means theres forces applied at
the crank.. While doing the simulation, if your process is not complete yet,
you will straightly failed to run the simulation. When that problem happened,
you must do some checking regarding your steps. There must be some miss
steps during the simulation process.