FEA help??
 

Hey everybody. I'm hoping this site is home to somebody proficient in SDRC I-DEAs FEA. I'm doing FEA on a vehicle space frame I designed for my vehicle design project. I used a beam mesh to create the FEA elements. When I run the analysis, there are nodes where the space frame separates without taking any load. It's because there are two nodes at that joint...one of the tubes entering that area is connected to one node, and the other tube is connected to another node. Thus, in the FEA model, the two tubes are not directly connected, so force cannot be transferred between them. So, if anybody is good with I-DEAs I could use some help letting me know how to join those nodes.

-Mat

I know some of those words.

fanookie
 

Hey, who does'nt love nodes?:cool:

haha..I knew this is all the help I'd get. It's a problem none of the FEA professors here at school could figure out..the SVX network was my absolute last hope :D To make this thread more interesting I'll just tell you what I'm modeling. My group in my senior capstone class has decided to design the Warthog from Halo. It's gonna be the "Jeep Warthog" just since it seems to fit the Jeep image pretty well. Plus, that way we can borrow components from other Jeeps and Dodge trucks instead of designing them. It'll be a 110" wheelbase, 35" Goodyear MT/R tires, "Hog-trak" 4.0:1 low range, 12" of suspension travel, and some other nifty features. All of it will be built on a space frame...the part that I am having trouble modeling. We're gonna use the 5.9L Cummins Turbodiesel from the Ram HD, and we're hoping to keep the weight below 4500lb :D Should be pretty sweet when finished.

I'm sure you'll get some input from some of our guys as soon as the right ones come around.

As for me, if I can't fix it with duct tape or a BFH, I'm lost. :D:D:D

Finite Element Analysis; The numerical method used to model a wide range of physical phenomena.