SUMMARY: Created a tri-cavity beam; Verified integrity under loading using ANSYS

DESCRIPTION:

The task given was to design a beam and its cross-section to ensure that the beam did not fail under loading. The purpose of the project was to expose students to the process of taking hand stress calculations and comparing simulation results against them to see where discrepancies lie in theory vs. practice (since at this point, students were most used to only using hand stress calculations). A secondary motivation was to help students identify areas in structures where there may be areas for design improvement or finding modes of failure that were not initially considered. The main design requirement: students must use specific beam cross-sections supplied by the professor. All else (such as flange thicknesses, cavity spacings, material, etc.) was to be determined by each group individually. Additionally, we had to verify the results we obtained against what ANSYS provided.

The first main issue we had to tackle was determining which cross section to stick with. The options available included a single-cavity beam (Cross Section “A”), a double-cavity beam (Cross Section “B”), and a triple-cavity beam (Cross Section “C”). After some cajoling from our TA, we decided to go after the triple cavity challenge.

After we selected Cross Section “C”, we iterated designs by hand to determine a specific design that could hold the prescribed loads and had acceptable stress levels. Once a design was found, we made a SolidWorks representative and exported the model into ANSYS, assigned a material (an Aluminum Alloy), loaded the beam, and ran the simulation. We verified that our triple-cavity beam did indeed hold the necessary load. 

For more technical details, please read the included report.