MECHGM05/GR05/M003: Advanced Computer Applications

in Engineering
Finite Element Analysis Assignment 1

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Loc Nguyen
Word Count: 2499

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Table of Contents

Abstract .......................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction ............................................................................................................. 2

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Methodology ............................................................................................................ 2

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Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 7

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Reference ................................................................................................................. 7

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Appendix A.....................................................................................................................12

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Appendix B .....................................................................................................................12

2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5

Plane Stress Analysis ..................................................................................................... 2

Model description ......................................................................................................... 3
Boundary and loading conditions ................................................................................... 3
Element type and meshing ............................................................................................ 3
Dimension sensitivity test (Edge effect).......................................................................... 3

Result ....................................................................................................................... 4
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5

Material properties and applied pressure sensitivity test ............................................... 4

Verification of boundary conditions with symmetry body............................................... 4
Mesh convergence study ............................................................................................... 4
Stress concentration factor ............................................................................................ 4
Edge effect study ........................................................................................................... 5

Discussion of result ................................................................................................... 5

4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6

Material properties and applied pressure sensitivity test ............................................... 5

Boundary conditions with symmetry body ..................................................................... 5
Convergence study ........................................................................................................ 5
Edge effect sensitivity test ............................................................................................. 6
Effect of orientated angle upon Kt ............................................................................... 6
Effect of b upon Kt in elliptical hole case......................................................................... 6

Comparing stress concentration factor results with empirical formulae ..................... 6

5.1

Sources of error............................................................................................................. 7

Stress concentration............................................................................................................... 12
Plane Stress and Plane Strain Analysis..................................................................................... 13

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Abstract

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When a plate of brittle material is subjected to tension by an uniaxial stress acting on its
ends, stress concentration is an important factor to analyse, as it can limit components yield
strength. Such concentrations appear at the discontinuities. To measure stress concentration
factor Kt resulted from such concentration, Finite Element analysis (FEA) can be used to
obtain numerical result. In this report, two thin metal plate with a circular/elliptic hole orientated
at an angle of 50o are investigated to measure Kt and the influence of their dimensions to Kt.
ANSYS Mechanical APDL is used to perform FEA. Initially, material properties, level of applied
load and boundary conditions sensitivity tests were done to verify their independence to result
and to give an insight to limitation of ANSYS. Another symmetry condition test was performed
on circular hole case to verify by using a part of symmetrical body, it will result a same answer.
This however cannot be applied to elliptical hole case. Then, a mesh convergence was done
by using Global Size and Smart Size options resulting in an optimum mesh of Global Size
0.03 with Smart Size 4. The mesh convergence test was done on circular hole case and then
the final mesh was applied to elliptical hole case. Finally, by varying a dimension of the plate
while others constant, edge effect can be studied in both models. It results that increasing the
dimensions generally leads to a gradually decrease of Kt.

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1 Introduction

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2 Methodology

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2.1 Plane Stress Analysis

When a plate of brittle material is subjected to tension by a uniaxial stress acting on its
ends, stress concentration is an important factor to analyse, as it can limit components yield
strength. Such concentrations appear at the discontinuities holes, notches or shoulders [1]
in the plate and result in high values of localised stress. Maximum stresses at stress
concentration areas for certain geometries can be calculated analytically by using derived
experimentally formulae [2]. With the advancement of Finite Element analysis (FEA),
computational method has become an alternative method to calculate the maximum stress.
The current reports aim is demonstration and validation of a finite element method based
solution for stress concentration factor of a metal plate containing a circular/elliptic hole under
uniaxial tension. The solution is obtained in ANSYS Mechanical APDL and is then compared
with calculated solution from empirical formulae. Besides that, a study of Edge Effect to the
solution is also carried out.

Plane stress analysis (Appendix B) is used for this thin plate model as its thickness is
considered to be very small compared to other dimensions. As mentioned above, this
simplification allows to determine stress in 2D case and then helps to reduce the nodes and
elements. Meanwhile, the computational solving time is also reduced.
Plane strain is not considered in this case as mentioned above. It is only required in problem
with a long retaining wall with lateral pressure.

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2.2 Model description

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2.3 Boundary and loading conditions

Three models for a A36 steel plate ( = 200 = 0.27) containing a circular,
elliptic hole and a right quarter of the plate respectively under uniaxial tension are created in
ANSYS Mechanical. The material is assumed to be linear, elastic and isotropic. A material
properties sensitivity test is carried out. In this assignment, following dimensions are used:
Circular hole case: H = 5m; L = 5m; a = b = R = 1m and = 50 GPa
Elliptical hole case: H = 5m; L = 5m; a = 1m; b = 0.65m, = 50o and = 50 GPa
Illustrations of the models are shown in Figure 1.

Boundary conditions description for each case are listed below and illustrations can be
found in Figure 2.
For full model of circular/elliptical hole case: the bottom line of the plate is constraint in
the direction parallel to the applied pressure and the middle node of bottom line is
constraint in the direction perpendicular to the applied load. A pressure load is set
acting outward the body at the top line of the model.
For quarter model of circular hole case: The applied pressure load is kept from the first
case. However, the left line of the model is constraint in the direction perpendicular to
the applied load and the bottom line of the model is constraint in the direction parallel
to the applied pressure.
Another test for sensitivity of applied pressure value is also carried out.

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2.4 Element type and meshing

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2.5 Dimension sensitivity test (Edge effect)

To verify the performance of different element types, three types will be used in this
report:
Triangle element with Plane183 (6 nodes) elements.
Quadrilateral element with Plane182 (4 nodes) and Plane183 (8 nodes) elements.
After having boundary conditions, material and element type, the plate can be meshed,
initially with a Global Size set to be to radius of the hole without Smart Size (improved mesh
near boundaries) employed. It is clear from observing the mesh at close to the hole, the
solution will not be accurate as the arc of the hole cannot be accurately modelled with such
coarse mesh and large element size. A convergence study is then conducted with gradually
improving the mesh, by first decreasing the element size, then using the Smart Size, to find
which optimum mesh produces results (maximum Von-Mises stress) converging to 3
decimals. Once the correct mesh is found, the stress concentration factor can be calculated
and then compared to calculations based on handbook formulae.

Edge effect can be studied by using maximum stress obtained by FEA and their resulted
stress concentration factor. To investigate the edge effect, few sensitivity tests are carried out:
For circle hole plate, the variation of stress concentration factor with respect to H which
is varied from 2.1 to 5
For circle hole plate, the variation of stress concentration factor with respect to L which
is varied from 1.1 to 10
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For elliptic hole plate, the variation of stress concentration factor with respect to H
which is varied from 2 to 5
For elliptic hole plate, the variation of stress concentration factor with respect to L which
is varied from 1.1 to 7
The higher limit of H is set at the situation that the plate is square and higher limit of L is
set by the restriction of element in ANSYS.

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3 Result

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3.1 Material properties and applied pressure sensitivity test

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3.2 Verification of boundary conditions with symmetry body

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3.3 Mesh convergence study

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3.4 Stress concentration factor

After varying material properties and applied pressure with a same mesh, it is observed
that stress concentration factor result is independent of material properties and applied
pressure.

The models (Figure 2) use the symmetry of both quarter plate and full plate to verify the
same result that should be obtained from symmetrical conditions. The advantage of using a
part of symmetrical body includes reducing computational processing time and reducing total
elements. From the result, it shows that the symmetry condition gives such a negligible
difference in Kt of 0.08% (Table 1). A quarter model is decided to use for the rest of circular
hole model.
Symmetry condition however cannot be applied to Elliptical hole case due to the dimension
and orientation of elliptic hole. It could have worked if the ellipse orientation was 450 and the
plate was square. For elliptical model, the same boundary conditions for full model of circular
hole case can be used.

From Figure 3, the performance of Plane183 element is better than the others. A
converged result is reached at roughly 30000 elements with the Global Size of 0.02 while for
Plane182, the result is still not stable. So Plane183 8-node Quadrilateral is chosen as a
suitable element type for further studies due to its lowered number of elements compared with
6-node Triangle.
However, as the mesh size keeps being lowered to half of 0.02, computational processing
time has increased significantly. To achieve faster convergence, the Smart Size option is then
used, which computes the approximate element edge lengths before generating the mesh for
each line on every area and then refines edge lengths to account for curvature. This can create
a finer mesh near the hole. The second iteration starts with Global Size of 0.05 using a Smart
Size of 4 (where 10 is most coarse and 1 is the finest). Then the Global Size is lowered to
0.02 with changing of Smart Size from 4 to 1 in each case. From Table 2, it can be seen that
using a Global Size of 0.03 with Smart Size, stress concentration factor converges instantly
with much lower number of elements (15000). Finally, a Global Size of 0.03 with Smart Size
of 4 is considered an optimum mesh to use for other studies.

By using the verified boundary condition and above optimum mesh, stress concentration
factor for circular case and maximum stress for elliptical hole case can be found numerically.

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Used formulae can be found in Appendix A. The result is shown in Table 3. An assumption
of infinite plate is used to calculate nominal stress of elliptic hole case.

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3.5 Edge effect study

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4 Discussion of result

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4.1 Material properties and applied pressure sensitivity test

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4.2 Boundary conditions with symmetry body

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4.3 Convergence study

The detailed result is shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6. Generally, It can be seen that stress
concentration factor decreased as value of H and L increases and there is sharp drop as the
dimensions are close to the edge of the holes. The influence of increasing L to convergence
of stress concentration factor is listed below:
For circular case, by increasing the value of L over 7, the Kt value converges eventually
to 2.248
For elliptical case, by increasing the value of L over 5, the Kt value converges
eventually to 2.214

The independence of stress concentration factor to material properties is expected

according to the independence of empirical formulae to those components. For applied
pressure, from Appendix A, it is required to calculate nominal stress then stress concentration
factor. However, the final factor is just a ratio of maximum stress and nominal stress so the
model can be considered as being independent to level of applied load/pressure.

To check the boundary conditions, contour plots (Figure 2) were made for the stress
distribution in the models using final mesh. The maximum stress appears at the point where
it is expected, at the centre node of circular hole in the direction parallel to the applied load.
The small percentage difference of 0.08% (Table 1) proves that symmetrical conditions
can be applied in ANSYS. However, a quarter model cannot be applied for elliptic hole case
as it is not symmetry so the boundary conditions in full plate with circular hole model is then
transferred to elliptic hole and is expected to give a fair result.

The results generally prove that the element type Quadrilateral Plane183 provides a
faster convergence as it is an 8-node Structural Element, which is capable of representing
deformations more accurately even at a coarser mesh than Plane182, which is a 4-node
element and has limitation in creating degenerated triangular element. Previous research has
also stated the same [3], using an 8-node element ensure a better accuracy compared to 4node. To achieve same amount of accuracy, 4-node element type needs much smaller mesh
size and more elements to reach convergence.
Choosing a Smart Size option also helps to reach convergence faster which is due to
the fact that the greatest difference using different mesh sizes appears at the most important
area, in the curvature of the circle/ellipse. The curvature can be accurately modelled with the
Smart Size option, as it creates smaller mesh elements than the global size near the arc of
the hole while not increasing the element number.
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4.4 Edge effect sensitivity test

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4.5 Effect of orientated angle upon Kt

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4.6 Effect of b upon Kt in elliptical hole case

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For circular hole case, the result confirms the effect of H in theoretical Equation 2.
Numerically, when H is much larger than R, this results in value of Kt moving further lower
than 3 and when H is not much different as R, Kt tends to go forward 3. The convergence of
Kt as L increases over baseline dimension also confirms theory as it does not have any effects
in the calculation. As the value of L decreases below its baseline, it tends to create another
problem as the stress cannot develop fully in the model or it takes over the role of H as L is
smaller than H, leading to high error percentage in the calculation of stress concentration
factor.
For orientated elliptical hole case, no empirical formula has been found. However, from
the result, it is shown that as H is close to the edge of the ellipse, the value of Kt tends to go
forward 7 and when H is further away, the value gets lower than 3 again. Again, the effect of
L should be the same with circular hole case.

For the orientated angle , as it increases, the value of Kt also increases. This can be
explained as the sharper edge of the ellipse moves toward the region of applied load.
However, ANSYS may miscalculate the experienced stress at higher angles. According to [4],
studies were done on a series of thick flat plates with elliptical holes orientated at different
angles. The results showed that to achieve a reliable accuracy, it required a large number of
element that was beyond the time and computational resources. For angle above 60o, the
accuracy is very poor due to the miscalculation of ANSYS.

The elastic stress distribution of an elliptical hole in an infinite-width thin plate in uniaxial
tension has been determined by Inglis and Kolosoff [5]. The resulted formulae for stress
concentration factor can be found below:

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For the case of =0: = (1 +

2
)

From above equation, it is shown that as b goes forward 0, the value of Kt goes forward
infinity.

For the case of =90o: = (1 +

2
)

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From above equation, it is shown that as b goes forward 0, the value of Kt goes forward
1.

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5 Comparing stress concentration factor results with empirical

formulae

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The comparison is shown in Table 4. It can be seen that there is only a small difference
for results obtained for the circular hole, less than 1% which means that FEA is capable of
recreating valid model and calculating the stress concentration. The small error also shows
that there is a close relationship between the condition represented by the handbook formulae
[2] and the setup in ANSYS.
Empirical formulae are not available for elliptical hole model. Despite mathematical
formulae - Equation 4 can be used to find Kt, it was assumed that the plate width is infinite and
is not suitable in this situation to investigate edge effect. It is believed that the obtained Kt for
elliptical hole can contain many errors.
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5.1 Sources of error

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6 Conclusion

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7 Reference

There are two types of errors occurring in FEA calculations: computational errors, due to
round-off errors in floating-point calculation and discretisation errors due to limitations of how
certain geometries (such as round surface) can be represented with the given element type
(quadrilateral element). Software developers aim at minimising the former, whereas the latter
is minimised by the analyst, by aiming at a certain quality of mesh, the assembly of the finite
elements that well represent the original structure and the solution obtained is within a certain
convergence criterion. [6] This is the crucial reason to find the optimum mesh in this report.
The difference can also be from the fact that the original experiment used in handbook
formulae might also contain errors.

The result of the report successfully proves that results obtained from FEA performed in
ANSYS Mechanical APDL are valid as compared with experimentally results. There is a slight
difference which gives an insight to its limitation. Mesh convergence is crucial; this was done
by using Smart Size mesh option. The optimum mesh is also important in aspect of
computational processing time. Simply lowering the mesh size just results in longer and longer
mesh setting up time. Sensitivity tests helped to show and understand the theory that how
they would affect the final answer. Boundary conditions and symmetry body also help to
understand how constraints work in ANSYS and the importance of using a part of symmetry
body to cut down simulation time.

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[1] J. M.Gere, Mechanics of Material, 6th ed., Brooks/Cole - Thomson Learning, 2004.
[2] C. Warren and G. Richard, Roarks Formulas for Stress and Strain, New York: McGraw Hill.
[3] D. Snowberger, Stress Concentration Factor Convergence Study of a Flat Plate with
anElliptical Hole Under Elastic Loading Conditions, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Hartford, Connecticut, 2008.
[4] B.C.Patle and D.V.Bhope, Evaluation Of Stress Concentration Factors In Plate With
Oblique Hole, IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering (IOSRJMCE), vol. 2,
no. 2, pp. 28-32, Oct 2012.
[5] W. D.Pilkey, Stress concentration factor, 2nd ed., Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1997,
pp. 213-217.
[6] R. Budynas and J.K.Nisbett, Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design., 8th ed., McGrawHill, 2006.
[7] R. J. Crawford, C. G. Armstrong and P. P. Benham, Mechanics of Engineering Materials,
2nd ed., Pearson Education Limited, 1996.
[8] S. Timoshenko and J. Goodier, Theory of Elastic, McGraw-Hill.
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List of Figures

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Figure 1 Illustrations of Full Plate Circular Hole Model, Quarter Plate Circular Hole Model
and Elliptical Hole Model respectively

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Figure 2 Illustration of full circular hole model and its quarter model and elliptical hole model
respectively with applied boundary conditions

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Stress concentration factor vs Number of elements

Stress Concentration factor

2.2600
2.2500
2.2400
2.2300
2.2200
2.2100
2.2000
2.1900
0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000

100000

Number of Elements
Quadrilateral, Plane 183 (8 nodes)

Quadrilateral, Plane 182 (4 nodes)

Triangular, Plane183 (6 nodes)

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Stress concentration factor vs Smart Size

2.2575
2.2570
2.2565
2.2560
2.2555
2.2550
2.2545
2.2540
5

Smart Size
Global size 0.05

Global Size 0.04

Global size 0.03

Global size 0.02

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Figure 4 Stress concentration factor against Smart Size

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Stress concentration factor

Figure 3 Graph of Stress concentration factor against Number of Elements

Edge Effect in circular hole case

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Stress concentration factor

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12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0

10

11

Length of dimension
Value of L against Kt

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Value of H against Kt

Figure 5 Edge effect study of circular hole case

Edge effect in elliptical hole case

7.5

Stress concentration factor

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6
5.5
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
0

Length of dimension
L against Kt

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H against Kt

Figure 6 Edge effect study of elliptical hole case

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List of Table
Case

Max stress (GPa)

Full Plate
Quarter Plate

186.69
186.84

Number of
Element
14795
14795
14795
14795

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298

0.08%

Mesh size
0.1
0.09
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.017
0.015
Smart Size
at Global
Size 0.03
4
3
2
1

Maximum Stress
(GPa)
187.45
187.62
187.34
187.5
187.59
187.73
187.86
187.94
188.01
188.03
188.04

Stress concentration
factor Kt
2.2494
2.2514
2.2481
2.2500
2.2511
2.2528
2.2543
2.2553
2.2561
2.2564
2.2565

Percentage
Difference
0.6137
0.7049
0.5546
0.6405
0.6888
0.7640
0.8338
0.8767
0.9143
0.9250
0.9304

Maximum Stress
(GPa)

Stress concentration
factor Kt

Percentage
Difference

188.03
188.03
188.03
188.03

2.2564
2.2564
2.2564
2.2564

0.925%
0.925
0.925
0.925

Table 2 Mesh convergence and resulted stress concentration factor for circular hole case

Case

Numerical Solution of Kt

Circular hole
Elliptical hole

2.256
2.2185

Maximum Von-Mise
stress
188.03
178.4

Table 3 Stress concentration factors obtained from FEA and calculated from handbook formulae

Case
Circular hole
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300

Percentage
Difference

Table 1 Result of symmetry condition test using a mesh of Global Size 0.1 Smart Size 4

Number of
Element
1098
1365
1727
2105
3079
4814
7977
14364
32927
45070
57509

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Stress concentration
factor Kt
2.240
2.242

Numerical Solution of
Kt
2.256

Empirical Solution of
Kt
2.236

Table 4 Comparison of results obtained using two different methods

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Percentage
Difference
0.925

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Appendix A
Formulae used in this report [2]
Equation 1 formulae for stress concentration factor

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Where:
is maximum stress obtained from Von Mises stress distribution in ANSYS
is nominal stress acting on the cross section which will be considered as the
stress acting on the plate for numerical result
Equation 2 formulae for nominal stress in circular hole case

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Equation 3 empirical formulae for stress concentration factor for circular hole case

2
2 2
2 3
= 3 3.13 ( ) + 3.66 ( ) 1.53 ( )

Equation 4 mathematical formula for stress concentration factor for orientated elliptical hole case [5]

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=
( 2)

Where:
P is force acting at the end of the plate
is pressure acting at the end of the plate
T is thickness of the plate
H is length of the side of block perpendicular to the direction of applied load
R is radius of the circular hole

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sinh 2 cos 2 + 2 cos 2( )

cosh 2 cos 2

Where
, is elliptical coordination system
is orientated angle
Equation 5 - formulae for nominal stress in elliptic hole case (assuming an infinite width plate)

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Where:
a is length of elliptic hole in major axis
is orientated angle of elliptic hole

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Appendix B

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Stress concentration

( )
cos()

The stress concentration phenomenon is explained by considering a fluid flow [7]. The
effect of a force or moment applied on a simple strut is transmitted through the body via the
medium of stress in adjacent elements. If the imaginary lines of transmission are taken as
analogous to streamlines in a fluid flow, the high localised stresses near a sudden change of
model, such as hole in this case, can be understood. The peak stress at concentration can
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exceed the averaged stress in the body. While yield stress exceeded at this area may not
cause failure in ductile component; for brittle material, the concentration remains up till
fracture. The stress concentration can reduce the overall strength of the component to what
extend depends on the structure of the material and how brittle it is. Another aspect that is
important in ductile materials is fatigue which such concentrations can have serious adverse
effect on strength. The exact theoretical analysis of concentration is complex. Before FEA and
computational methods, calculation was possible using handbooks containing the formulae
and tables, results of theoretical solutions and experiments [2, 7].

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Plane Stress and Plane Strain Analysis

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assumed tentatively that these three components are independent of z they do not vary
through the thickness. They are then only a function of x and y. [8]
The stress and strain tensors are respectively:
0
0
= ( 0) , = ( 0)
0
0 0
0
0 0
A similar simplification is possible at the other extreme when the dimension of the body
in the z-direction is very large. If a long cylindrical or prismatic body is loaded by forces that
are perpendicular to the longitudinal elements and do not vary along the length, it may be
assumed that all cross sections are in the same conditions. It is simplest to suppose at first
that the end sections are confined between fixed smooth rigid planes, so that displacement in
the axial direction is prevented. Since there is no axial displacement at the ends and, by
symmetry, at the midsection, it may be assumed that the same holds at every cross section.
The stress and strain tensors are respectively:
0
0
= ( 0 ) , = ( 0)
0
0
0
0 0
The longitudinal normal stress can be found in terms of and by means of
Hookes Law. So like Plane Stress, Plane Strain reduces the determination of , , as
function of x and y only.

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For the thin plate is loaded by forces applied at the boundary, parallel to the plane of the
plate and distributed uniformly over the thickness, the stress components , , are zero
on both faces of the plate, and it may be assumed, that they are zero also within the plate.
The state of stress is then specified by , , only, and is call Plane Stress. It may also be

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