International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET)

Volume 6, Issue 7, Jul 2015, pp. 21-28, Article ID: IJMET_06_07_004

Available online at
http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JTypeIJMET&VType=6&IType=7
ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359
IAEME Publication
___________________________________________________________________________

NUMERICAL STUDY ON STRESS

ANALYSIS OF CURVED BEAMS
D. Bharadwaj
M. Tech. CAD/CAM Student,
Sreenidhi Institute of Science &Technology, Hyderabad, India
A. Purushotham
Professor, Sreenidhi Institute of Science &Technology, Hyderabad, India
ABSTRACT
The static analysis of naturally curved beams with closed thin walled cross
section has many important applications in mechanical, civil and aeronautical
engineering. Many of the curved beams subjected to bending moment find in
real life applications .Due to bending moment, tensile stresses developed in
one portion of the section and compressive stresses in other portion of cross
section. The analytical computation to determine these stresses are more
complex, therefore in this paper we attempted the determination of stresses
and deflection of curved beams when it is subjected to bending moment with
the help of ansys software. The result obtained from ansys software is
validated with the simplified stress equations of curved beams developed by
the other researchers. The material selected for curved beams for simulation
studies is isotropic ductile material. The geometry of curved beams is
described with central included angle in this paper. The work carried out
exhaustively covers the estimation of stresses in quarter circle beam, semi
circle beam, three quarter circle beam and full circle beam. The methodology
adopted for simulation model briefed out step by step in this paper for further
studies of other researchers
Key words: Beams, Stress and Deflection
Cite this Article: Bharadwaj, D. and Purushotham, A. Numerical Study on
Stress Analysis of Curved Beams. International Journal of Mechanical
Engineering and Technology, 6(7), 2015, pp. 21-28.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JTypeIJMET&VType=6&IType=7
_____________________________________________________________________

1. INTRODUCTION & LITERATURE SURVEY

The determination of stress and displacement in a rectangular cross section curved
beam will play very important role in many structural problems. Many researchers

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp

21

editor@iaeme.com

D. Bharadwaj and A. Purushotham

attempted previously with the help of simple beam theory adopted for straight beams.
In 1968 Gaydon [1] has discussed the problem of rectangular cross section curved
beam with boundary loadings. His work was totally on analytical complex expression.
Sarma et al (1975) [2] simplified the expressions developed by previous authors some
extent by adopting Eigen function for the solution of stress problems of curved beams
[3, 4]. Dym, C. L. and Williams [5] proposed stress and displacement expressions for
curved arcs which are more suitable to write finite element equations in 2011. ERIK
PERSSON [6] utilized MATLAB/CALFEM softwares to determine stress and
deflections of structures made up of curved beams. He also compared the results with
the analytical expressions developed by previous authors to simplify the problem of
stress analysis of curved beams of rectangular cross section; we developed ansys FEA
modeling in this paper. This work helps researchers to determine stresses quickly as
per their requirement of beam size and material.
The paper is organized in the following manner: section 2 describes the geometry
of the beam and load condition on it. It also covers the finite element model of curved
beam. Section 3 discusses the results obtained from the ansys simulation study made
on the curved beam with different loading condition. Conclusions are finally drawn in
the section 4.

2. GEOMETRY AND FEA MODELING OF CURVED BEAMS

The cross section selected for curved beam is a rectangle having width: 40 m height:
20 mm. The outer and the inner diameter of curved beam are respectively 310 mm
and 300 mm. The material used for curve beam is carbon steel of youngs modulus
2*105 MPa and poison ratio 0.3. The geometry of curved beam in ansys software. The
sequential steps used to form geometry of curved beam are given below:
Step: 1 we need to select create option
Step: 2 we need to select Areas
Step: 3 we have to select annulus circle
Step: 4 after selecting annulus circle we need to select rectangle
Step: 5 we will get the required curved beam

If we follow above steps the curved beam geometric model appears as shown in
Figure 1.
The FEA model of the curved beam is worked out with the following sequential
steps in ANSYS:
Step: 1 choose the element type solid quadnode82
Step: 2 real constants are default
Step: 3 apply material properties by giving youngs modulus and Poisson ratio
Step: 4 sectioning width: 40 depth: 20
Step: 5 follow the modeling steps given above
Step: 6: Adopt meshing mesh tool smart size

The FEA model obtained with the above steps is shown in the Figure 2.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp

22

editor@iaeme.com

Numerical Study on Stress Analysis of Curved Beams

Figure 1 Semi circular arc before meshing

Figure 2 Mesh model of semi circle arc

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this section the numerical study on deflection and stresses developed in circular arc
rings subjected to different loading is covered. There are eight different arcs of rings
considered for the study. The rectangular cross section beam is selected with the
dimension 40 mm and 20 mm. Figure 3 shows the ansys numerical results on four
different circular beams whose circular included angles are 180,360,90 and 270.
Here every circular plate was loaded with 5 N force. It is found that semi circular
beam experienced maximum stress value up to 100 MPa while three fourth circled
beams encountered less stress value 47 MPa. Figure 4 shows the numerical results of
stresses and deflections of the four circular beams that are taken for simulation study
earlier example. Here the load taken on the model is 10 N, but here the numerical
studies shows the maximum stress induced is in full circular beam.
Set of Figures shown in Figure 5 predicts the stress and deflection values of four
different circular plates when they are subjected to the bending load of 15 N.Here also

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp

23

editor@iaeme.com

D. Bharadwaj and A. Purushotham

the maximum stresses are induced in a plate where circular arc included angle is 360
degrees.

Figure 3 stress and deflection values of various curved beams with load 5 N.

Figure 4 stress and deflection values of various curved beams with load 10 N.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp

24

editor@iaeme.com

Numerical Study on Stress Analysis of Curved Beams

Figure 5 stress and deflection values of various curved beams with load 15 N.

Figure 6 stress and deflection values of various curved beams with load 20 N.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp

25

editor@iaeme.com

D. Bharadwaj and A. Purushotham

Similarly the simulation studies are run on all four circular beams with the load 20
N and the obtained results are shown in Figure 6 here the maximum stresses are
developed in full circle beam having the value 176 MPa.
The simulation studies are also worked out by changing arc included angle from
zero degrees to 270 degrees for different loads ranging from 5 N to 20 N.The results
are included in the form of graphs shown in fi
Load:5N
Load:10N

100

110

100

90
90

80

Stress MPA

stress MPA

80

70

70

60

50

60

40

50
30

40
50

20
50

100

150

200
250
angle of arc,Degrees

300

350

100

150

400

200
250
Angle of arc,Degrees

300

350

400

load:15N

Load :20N

180

280
170

240

160

220

150

200

140

stress MPA

Stress, MPa

260

180

130

160
120

140
110

120
100

100

80
50

90
50

100

150

200
250
Angle of arc , Degrees

300

350

400

100

150

200
250
angle of arc,Degrees

300

350

Figure 7 Variation of stresses with the change of included arc angle of beams.

The stress ratio are also caluculated as the ratio between maximum stress to
minimum stress on every curved beam when loads are changed from 5 N to 20 N.The
results of the variation of the stresses are shown in the Figure 8.
The variation of stress ratio with the arc included angle is shown in the Figure 9. It
is observed from this Figure that the stress ratio in all loading conditions on various
curved beams found to be more than two and less than three.It implies that the
bending stresses increses to minimum twice of the nominal stresses induced in
straight beam.It is also found that the maximum stress ratio is on semi circular curved
beam.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp

26

editor@iaeme.com

400

Numerical Study on Stress Analysis of Curved Beams

Figure 8 variaton of stresses with different loads on four curved beams

Figure 9 variation of stress ratio arc angles

4. CONCLUSIONS
After realizing the difficulty for the estimation of stresses and deflections in curved
beam by different authors, this paper finds numerical solutions to get stresses and
deflections in a curved beam with the help of ansys software. The magnitude of
curvature of the beam is described with arc angle and various ansys models are
developed, by changing curved angles from 0
0 to 90 to 180 to 270.. After the ansys
analysis on curved beam following conclusions are made. 1)The stress values found
to be maximum when a circular arc being subjected to a bending load. 2)When
analysis is carried out on semi circular beam subjected to similar load conditions as
that of other circular beams, it is found that maximum stress values are developed
than the other cases. 3)The stress factor that is the ratio of maximum
maximum stress to

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp
ET/index.asp

27

editor@iaeme.com

D. Bharadwaj and A. Purushotham

minimum stress also calculated for full circle, semi circle, quarter circle, three fourth
circular beams. when loads fluctuates from 5 N to 20 N. It is found that the stress
factor 4.1 which is high in the case of load condition 10 N. The procedure adopted in
this paper for modelling various types of circular beam. It is helpful to test
numerically the stress values of various shapes of curved beams.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank the Head of the Mechanical Engineering, Principal and Director
Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST) Hyderabad for their support
and permission to carry out this research thesis work.

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

[5]
[6]

Gaydon, F. A. The rectangle under general equilibrium loading in generalized

plane stress. Proc. R. Soc. A, 283, 1968, pp. 356
Sarma, P. V. B. A. S., Ramachandra Rao, B. S. and Gopalacharyulu, S.
Eigenfunction, 1975.
Solution for plane stress problems of curved beams. Int. J. Engng. Sci., 13. pp.
14959.
Debnath, V. and Debnath, B. Deflection and Stress Analysis of A Beam on
Different Elements Using Ansys APDL. International Journal of Mechanical
Engineering & Technology IJMET, 5(6), 2014, pp. 7079.
Dym, C. L. and Williams, H. L. Stress and Displacement estimates for Arches.
Journal of Structural Engineering, 137(1), 2011.
Persson, E. Stress and strength analysis of curved glulam beams with box cross
section Masters Dissertation LUND University, 2012.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp

28

editor@iaeme.com