C is for “Cantilever beam”
As I promised a few weeks ago, I’m back with a tutorial! In this occasion, a cantilever beam will be modelled in Abaqus/Standard. What is more, the importance of defining a good mesh (not only the element size matters!) will be illustrated with several examples.
So, first things first. A cantilever beam is a structure which has one of its ends fully constrained. This means that all degrees of freedom are restricted. An example is presented in the following figure:
A similar case as the one presented above will be modelled using the Finite Element package Abaqus/Standard. The structure can be created using different types of elements: beam, bar, solid or shell. I have decided to model it using shell elements, since it will allow me to show the influence of the element size and type in a very simple way.
In order to create the component we need to be in the Part module. We should select the 3D deformable shell (planar) option. Then we will be able to create the geometry. In this case a simple rectangle of 20mm x 100mm will be enough. Please bear in mind that Finite Element codes are unitless and all the parameters need to be defined in a consistent system of units. I have decided to use mm, GPa and kN.
