ASSIGNMENT -1 ME 5130 - FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

FINITE ELEMENT PROGRAM FOR SIMPLY SUPPORTED BEAM ELEMENT

Description of the problem:
Solve for the deflection of a simply supported beam, loaded by a point force at the mid-span. Verify
the obtained solution by solving the same problem using symmetry boundary condition

Figure 1: Simply supported beam with point load at mid-span
Solution:
Assumptions used for the finite element program
Material and section properties:
The youngs modulus value, E = 1 unit
Length of the bar is assumed to be 1 unit
Cross section area of the beam, A=1 unit
Loading and boundary conditions:
Simply supported boundary conditions i.e. pin support at one end and roller support at the other
end.
A point load of unit magnitude is applied at the mid-span of the beam
Units system used:
For all the inputs to FE program a unit value is assumed, The Analytical calculations are also
performed for the unit values.
Strategy used for the finite element program
The Finite element program used for the TRUSS element is taken as starting point and it was
modified for the beam element. The local stiffness matrix for the beam element was keyed in inplace
of the truss element local stiffness matrix. Transformation matrix was not required in this case. The
degrees of freedom at each node where 2 like in the case of truss element but with first DOF being
vertical displacement and second degree of freedom being theta or rotation. Beam does not take
any axial deformation hence the axial deformation was not included.

ASSIGNMENT -1 ME 5130 - FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

Beam was discretized such that a node is present at the mid-span for application of load and
measurement of deflection.
All other steps in the FE program are similar to the once used in case of TRUSS.
Additionally a spectial case of symmetric boundary condition was studied, where theta at midspan
was fixed in addition to the vertical displacement at pinned support.
Results and discussion
Figure 2 shows the deflection of beam obtained from the FE program. The results are exactly similar
to those obtained from the analytical solution.
Deflection obtained from the FE model with symmetric boundary conditions are matching with the
results from the full FE model. Figure 3 presents the results with symmetric boundary conditions.











Figure 2: Deflection of the simply supported beam with point load at center.

Analytical solution is obtained using equation:

Max Deflection of simply supported beam with a point load at the center
= WL3/ 48 EI = 0.020833 ( for E=1,A=1,L=1)

ASSIGNMENT -1 ME 5130 - FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

Figure 3: Deflection of the simply supported beam with point load at center- symmetric
boundary conditions