FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

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arcol
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:02 am

FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

Post by arcol »

Hi,

I would like to build a shutter similar to the attached image:
Shutter
Shutter
_DSC8872.jpg (804.74 KiB) Viewed 2888 times
(The image comes from this project page: http://www.archdaily.com/785802/living- ... -arhitekti ).

The shutter which is 130kg, and has a 1000x3800x25mm size, is hold by three stainless steel sheets (size is 210x50x3mm).
It sticks out of the wall 130mm (80mm is inside in the wall welded to normal steel rebar):
shutter.png
shutter.png (10.48 KiB) Viewed 2888 times
So I'm curious if the sheets, which are holding the shutter are big enough for the job. Should it be 80mm high?
Maybe 5mm thick, instead of 3mm?

How much is the deformation/bending?

I would like to calculate/model it somehow using freecad. Any pointers/helping hands?
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bernd
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Re: FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

Post by bernd »

what do you mean by shutter? the sliding door of the picture?!
arcol
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:02 am

Re: FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

Post by arcol »

bernd wrote:what do you mean by shutter? the sliding door of the picture?!
Yes, exactly.
ezzieyguywuf
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Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 1:11 am

Re: FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

Post by ezzieyguywuf »

If you're talking about the three small beams at the top, I'm not sure if FreeCAD will help you figure out how to size them. It will depend on two things:

1) The material that the beams are made of
2) The amount of weight they are expected to hold, which is effectively a third the weight of the large front sheet.

You should be able to calculate the weight of the large front sheet, as long as you know the material. Once you know the material, you can look up the density of the material, then multiply it by the volume of the sheet to get the approximate weight. Make sure you keep track of the proper units!

Once you know the weight, you can use typical beam equations - or online calculators - to figure out if your beams are beefy enough. Here is one resource. If you scroll down the table, you'll want to look at "Cantilevered beam with one load applied at the end". The value of the load is one-third the weight of your sheet. Then, you can play with the beam geometry until you are satisfied that it is "strong enough".

I usually design things with a factor of safety between 1.5 and 3. I'll go up to 3 if it is not too cost prohibitive. A factor of safety of 3 in this case would effectively mean that one beam could hold the entire weight of the sheet on its own without deflecting "too much". It's up to you to decide what "too much" is, though you'd probably want to keep it inside the range of plastic deformation...
arcol
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:02 am

Re: FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

Post by arcol »

ezzieyguywuf wrote:If you're talking about the three small beams at the top, I'm not sure if FreeCAD will help you figure out how to size them. It will depend on two things:

1) The material that the beams are made of
Stainless steel (the cheapest 1.4301/KO-33/AISI 304)
2) The amount of weight they are expected to hold, which is effectively a third the weight of the large front sheet.

Once you know the weight
The large front sheet is 130kg.

Based on this webpage: http://www.engineersedge.com/beam_bendi ... nding9.htm

I should use this formula: (W*l^3)/(3*E*I)
W = ~1300N (130kg)
l = 120mm (the rest is in the concrete)
E = 193 GPa (modulus of elasticity, here: http://asm.matweb.com/search/SpecificMa ... num=MQ304A)
I = ?? mm^4 (moment of inertia)

I basically stuck what is the moment of inertia in this formula.
Also I do not see where it takes into account the width of the sheet ( 210x60x4mm). Also I talked with some shops,
and I will make it out of 3mm sheets (it can be cut by hydraulic scissor). So now the only option is to put more dense.
ezzieyguywuf
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Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 1:11 am

Re: FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

Post by ezzieyguywuf »

You can calculate the Area Moment of Inertia (I) using the equation found here. For a rectangle it's pretty straightforward, but make sure that you use 'b' and 'd' properly. 'd' is the vertical dimension that is holding the load, 'b' is the horizontal direction parallel to the ground.

When you talk about the width of the sheet, are you talking about the large piece in front? I suppose you technically do need to take this into account, but if you assume the sheet is perfectly centered on the three supports, then 'taking it into account' would essentially boil down to 'each support is holding one third of the weight'. I don't see how the width of the sheet would matter in any other way...
arcol
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:02 am

Re: FEM: How to calculate required material thickness

Post by arcol »

Just a feedback:
I didn't need to do any calculation at the end.
I could manufacture with hydraulic scissor from sheets with 3mm thickness (max).
I could make the sheets 60mm maximum height (physical limitation), so the final size became 3x60x210mm (and the longer one 3x60x270mm).

The only question remain, how dense should it be? But this question was solved by itself,
I needed to buy a whole sheet, and cut the whole sheet to size, so I put every holding sheet in place,
if one is not needed, I will cut it at the concrete surface.

On a sidenote, it was a rather bad idea. Putting anything sticking out of the formwork, is exponentially more difficult to make.
Would be much better, to just be a rectangle on the surface of the wall, and weld it after the structure is done.
(much more foregiving to error, 2cm play is fine, which is really easy to achieve).

Or drill holes, as everyone else is doing it...
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