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Linear buckling in
If you want to avoid blunders I did as a Ph.D. researcher… de nitely read plain language!
posted on January 2, 2017
on!
The two above are big ones… unless you are designing something solid in
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shape. I mean, if you really have to analyze a stocky solid it won’t enter a
with it.
membrane state, and it won’t buckle either. In such a case nonlinear
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geometry won’t do you any good…
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… funny thing is, it won’t do you any harm either! If you use a nonlinear
geometry analysis with something that behaves linearly… you will get the Stay
same outcomes as from linear analysis. But of course, the setup and the newsletter
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Imagine you have a string attached on both ends to the wall. If you put a
load on it, the string will de ect like crazy! Simply put if you would treat it
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as a beam, such a beam is so “weak” due to bending that calculated
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deformations would be insane!
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• Post Processing
Being stable
• Contact
• Linear Buckling
The second problem is with stability. As you most likely know you can
pull a crate on a string, but you can’t push the crate with the same string. Case Studies
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What would happen is that the string would simply tangle up, and not
with it. Structural Design Topics:
carry any compression. In an extremely simpli ed form, this is bucking.
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In essence, everything that is slender (thin and relatively long) have a essentials
“critical load”. When you apply this load, instead of nicely carrying it with
compression the element will simply “buckle”. Usually, this will look like
course!
your element simply “bends into an arc”. This actually is a form of First Name
failure… sadly linear analysis will gladly load your element way above its
critical load and display nice results. Completely ignoring the fact that
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your element actually failed way before the applied load level!
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Luckily for us, there are other analyses we can perform to check if we will
lose stability or not. Without a doubt, a Linear Bifurcation Analysis (LBA)
is the most popular choice. This is still a “linear” analysis (as the name
suggest), but it’s not a “stress analysis” in a sense. What it does is, that it
tells you how many times you have to increase the load in your model to
cause the ideal critical failure.
This means, that if you have a beam you can use LBA to see where it will
fail due to instability. A pretty nifty trick!
But there is a big problem in this paradise. As I already told you LBA is
linear by de nition. This means for instance, that it cannot see nonlinear
geometry in the model. So… your model cannot enter “membrane state”
we already discussed, and all pressure loaded plates are bent (not in
tension) regardless of their deformations. This means, that LBA will often
nd some really bizarre failure modes, that are completely unrealistic –
like those:
The above hopper is loaded with pressure acting to the outside. You don’t
have to be an expert to see that something is off here. There are relatively
thin plates between stiffeners, and those would enter the membrane
state in reality. But since LBA “doesn’t know that” it produces such funky
instability failure modes that are completely impossible to occur in reality.
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Sadly, this is not all. Since buckling is a geometrically nonlinear
with it.
phenomenon, LBA can often be wrong. While for beams it does a pretty
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good job, I wouldn’t trust LBA outcomes for shells! Sadly, LBA will often
overpredict capacity – sometimes by a big margin!
In both of the above cases, you will need a nonlinear analysis to deal with
such problems.
To sum it up:
LBA can warn you that you have stability problems in your structure.
Sadly, it cannot take nonlinear geometry into account (among other
effects), which results in some problems. If nonlinear geometry would
impact the outcomes you may either get a weird “impossible” failure
modes… or LBA will greatly overestimate the capacity of your shell
model (and this is a real problem!).
This is why in a lot of cases (i.e. shell structures) you should use
nonlinear analysis instead!
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Simply put nonlinear geometry can take into account all those effects I
just described. In a pretty extreme situation, the outcomes may look like
this:
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What the analysis does, is that it divides the loads to small portions
(called increments), and then it applies those increments to your model
“one by one”. Thanks to this, the analysis “see” how the model behave
and take all the nonlinearities into account.
The problem is, that the setup and computing time takes much longer
than in case of linear analysis. Not to mention that you actually need
to own software that is capable of doing such an analysis… and you
need to know how to set it up!
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I get the feeling that nonlinear material is something that you initially
thought when I started discussing nonlinear analysis… and for a good
reason!
This doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Sadly, I think this assumption is
responsible for a lot of woes – I believe it is mostly responsible for the
fact that people don’t trust their FEA outcomes. It also causes most
problems in analyzing FEA outcomes and drawing conclusions from
those!
Firstly, let’s take a look at a typical strain-stress curve. This is the chart
that shows you what is the relation between stress and strain in the
material. If you ever studied anything slightly connected with steel
structures you most likely saw this:
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This is how typically mild steel behaves. If you would put a steel
specimen into a hydraulic press for a tension test… basically this is what
you would get. To make it easier to imagine just switch stress for load
and strain for elongation and you are ne : )
The problem is, that modeling such a complex behavior takes time and
effort. And it’s relatively easy to see this beautiful straight elastic part of
the chart. I don’t know about you, but it sure does make me want to use a
linear approach!
This is a really neat approach. We don’t have to “care” for all the
nonlinearities, while within the linear zone, the answers we get are just
perfect! Awesome stuff!
But you already know where I’m going with this… After all, we can “enter”
the nonlinear part of the chart when the strain in our material gets high
enough. Then the problems begin.
Initially, this may not look like a big issue. I mean a rule could be made
that “if I ever get stress higher than yield this is a failure”. You know the
reasoning being that if a big portion of your model will yield it would fail
anyway. But there is a big issue with this approach, that comes with more
complex geometries than a at steel piece: stress concentrations!
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Concentrate on the solution with it.
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So, did this part fail? Perhaps, after all, the dark blue is around 450MPa.
But since this is a linear analysis we can easily scale this down. What if
the maximal stress would be “only” 900MPa, while the dark blue would be
225MPa for a steel grade S355?
Linear analysis is not meant to be used like that. Sure, you could argue a
lot about whether the stress in the concentration is “allowable or not” but
in the end, it would be a judgment call. If you would like to be “certain”,
you would have to use nonlinear material!
How do I wish to analyze the size of the zone in order to prove that
it is “still acceptable” while a slightly bigger one is “not acceptable”
anymore?
What
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about 20%? What is the limit stress in such a case and how can I
with it.
calculate it? Ok
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You see, those questions have no answers when you use Linear Analysis.
Only with a nonlinear material, you can make such calls – and this is the
“power” of the nonlinear analysis in this case.
To sum it up:
Linear analysis is spot on with stresses when those are below the
yield point of the material (or other nonlinear behaviors for the
matter). However, if the strains in the material are so high then you
would enter the “nonlinear” part of the stress-strain relationship…
linear outcomes start to go “dumb”. Pretty fast they are “outrageously
stupid”. Sadly, such high strains appear in most models in small areas
around details due to concentrations.
This is why you need to use nonlinear material when dealing with
stresses higher than yield!
The only thing you could really do in such a case is to use nonlinear
material. Truth be told there are a LOT of different material models. I’ve
described 4 that I consider “most commonly used” in this article.
As you can see above, the material takes the elastic (linear) and plastic
properties of the material into account. Such a material would be called
“bi-linear” for obvious reasons. But there are 2 approaches you may have
with it. I guess you most likely heard about “work hardening” – the fact
that
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under high strains. with it.
Ok
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You may or may not want to use it in your model. Usually, in my design, I
don’t want to go into the strengthening zone of the material. I was taught
at university that this is a “desperate” zone if you are doing a new design
(but it has its uses when you need to strengthen something that already
exists). In such a case my material model would look like this:
But if I would expect very high strains (“climbing” the hardening slope) I
might use such a material model:
This way, I can take the work hardening into account (in a simpli ed way).
I usually go with no hardening, but I guess this will comes down to what
you are trying to do. In my models, where strains are very localized (due
to stress concentrations as we discussed above) the difference between
those two materials is minimal – I actually checked that once.
In essence nonlinear material just “makes your life easier”. You don’t
have to wonder if the stress you got in that pesky stress
concentration is too high or not. Instead, you can just check plastic
strain, and see if there was any possibility of plastic collapse and you
are ne. Both are “clearly” de ned so judgment calls are rarely
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needed. with it.
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It’s impossible to discuss this in one post, so I’ve made a whole series
about this topic on my blog. You will nd there not only a owchart that
will guide you in the choice, but also a complete guide on how to
approach each step of the way. I’m sure you will nd that useful!
Well… there is no answer to that. Firstly, the stress above yield in the
linear analysis just indicates that there will be yielding involved in reality.
This in itself is not a tragedy, but it doesn’t mean this is always
acceptable. My favorite example is:
Well for the rode in tension it’s not! After all the entire cross-section is
under the same stress. If you allow it to yield, the rod will fail.
On another hand in bending only the outer parts of the same cross-
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perfectly allowable in design codes. Even more, when you use the
“plastic section modulus” in design (default in most Ok
codes for steel
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What the above shows? It only shows that whether stress higher than
yield in the linear analysis is allowed, depends on what model are you
analyzing! There is no one- ts-all answer! Remember, any time you are in
doubt… just use the nonlinear material and be certain!
No, not really. I can imagine where this comes from… after all, you get
higher deformations and bigger stresses when elements can’t enter
membrane state. For those, outcomes would be “worse” in LA. But don’t
forget that those elements are attached to something! If they will enter
the membrane stare a big horizontal force will be applied at supports
(and you won’t get it in LA!). This means that you will be missing a major
load component.
* I know “small” is not extremely precise. Most likely you have a code to
follow that should de ne “allowable deformations”. I think those could be
treated as “small enough”. If you don’t have such a code my wild guess
would be something like “small means length of the element divided by
300” or something similar. It’s best to make some tests with linear and
nonlinear analysis and estimate your limits yourself of course : )
10 Comments
Nice .
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Luis March 16, 2019 at 9:19 pm - Reply
Well explained.
Thank you 🙂
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