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Finite Element Validation of Low Impact Response on a Lab-Scale Space Frame Structure

ASME 2012 Verification & Validation Symposium May 2nd 4th, 2012, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Jagadeep Thota, Mohamed Trabia & Brendan OToole

Department of Mechanical Engineering Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering University of Nevada, Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV, USA.

Background
Space frame structures have been commonly used in vehicles to enhance their structural strength while reducing the overall weight. When a vehicle, with an internal space frame structure, is subjected to an impact load, the individual frames and joints of the space frame play a critical role in mitigating the generated shocks. In order to effectively design the space frame structure, it is important to predict the propagation of these shocks through the space frame members. While performance of space frame structures under static loads is well-understood, research on space frame structures subjected to impact loading is minimal

Literature Review
Gaul and Lenz (1997) showed that nonlinear shock transfer performance of joints has substantial influence on the dynamics of the structure as they induce large amount of damping. Sandia National Laboratory (2001) conducted FE studies for investigating energy dissipation due to micro-slip in the bolted joints. Song et al. (2002, 2004) developed a beam element, which can simulate the non-linear behavior of bolted joints on a vibrating frame. Ibrahim and Pettit (2005) suggested that friction in bolted joints is a main sources of energy dissipation in mechanical structures. Thota et al. (2011) conducted computational studies on a military vehicle space frame subjected to high impact load.

Objective
Develop a lab-scale space frame structure having bolted joints. Conduct a low impact experiment on the space frame structure and measuring the resulting acceleration (shock) response. Propose a FE method that can predict the shock response measured in the experiment.

 To consider the shocks within a 3-D structure, a lab-scale space frame is designed. The overall length of the cube shaped structure is 482.6 mm. The frame members are hollow, having square cross-section with wall thickness being 3.175 mm.

Lab-Scale Space Frame

Joint Design
The joint halves are C-shaped sections, which are bolted together through the frame members. The joint has two orthogonal branches of 114.3 mm, and the combined width is 50.8 mm. The angle joint houses the ends of the longer frame members while the shorter frame member ends are enclosed by the joint halves. The angle joint legs are 100 mm long, and width is 50.8 mm. The wall thickness of the joints (including angle) is 6.35 mm.

The length of frame members outside the joints are: Horizontal members are 254 mm long, Vertical members are 381 mm long.

Joint Halves
To eliminate noise in the acceleration (shock) signal, the faces of the opposing joint halves are 3.175 mm apart. This arrangement ensures a more homogenous contact between the joint and the frame members.

Space Frame Sections

D t D t D

W Frame member

W Angle Joint

W Joint half

Type Frame member Angle joint Joint

D 38.1 88.9 50.8

W 38.1 88.9 25.4

t 3.2 6.4 6.4

All dimensions are in mm

Material
All components of the lab-scale space frame, except the bolts, is made of Aluminum 6061 alloy. The structure approximately weighs 11.4 kg.
Density (kg/m3) Youngs Modulus (GPa) Poissons Ratio Yield Strength (MPa) Tangent Modulus (MPa)

2700
Stress Yield Point

68.9
Failure Point Tangent Modulus

0.33

276

562

Elastic Modulus

MAT_PLASTIC_KINEMATIC
Strain

Bolt Tightening
Grade 8 bolts were used in the space frame structure . The bolts are tightened to reduce the noise in the output signals that can result from loose connections. Applying the same tightening torque on all bolts ensures the repeatability of the results. The bolts are tightened to a preload of 10.8 kN and a torque of 12.5 Nm. These values are computed from the standard design equations:
= 0.9 = 10.8 = 0.21 = 12.5

Sp = Proof stress of the bolt material = 586 MPa At = Tensile stress area of bolt = 2.1e-5 m2 dp = Pitch diameter of the bolt threads = 5.525e-3 m

Impact Experiment
Low velocity, non-destructive, impact experiment was carried out. The structure is placed on an aluminum support during the experiment. An upper frame member is impacted at the mid-member location with a force hammer. Acceleration is recorded, through an accelerometer, in the middle of the opposite frame member location. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the resulting acceleration signal is conducted. FFT is used to determine the natural frequencies of the space frame.

Finite Element Model

All components of the lab-scale structure are modeled as beam elements. Common elements between the different components of the structure are merged to obtain contact. The angle joint and the bolts are not structurally modeled, but their masses are accounted for by adding mass-elements at each corner of the cube. Preprocessor: Altair-HyperMesh (v 9.0) Solver: LS-DYNA (v 971)

Finite Element Model

(3-D representation is for illustration purpose only)

Finite Element Model

The joint is modeled as two parts:
The first part (blue) comprises of combined cross-sections of the frame and joint. The second part (red) is the crosssection of the joint.

The length of the beam elements are maintained at 3.2 mm, resulting in a total of 1,832 elements. The loading condition and output similar to the experiment are mimicked. Total simulation run time: 8 ms CPU (3 GHz Intel Xeon processor with 2 GB RAM) time: Approximately 6 minutes.

Results
The unfiltered force signal obtained from the experiment is used to define the impact curve for FE analysis. The acceleration signals from experiment and simulation are filtered using Butterworth low-pass filter with cutoff frequency of 10,000 Hz. The sampling rate for the experiment and FE analysis is 1 megasample/second.

Typical Force Signal

Results: Acceleration Signal

The predicted acceleration signal captures the first peak of the experiment. Most of the subsequent acceleration peaks for the FE model are smaller than the experimental result. The frequency of the predicted signal matches well with the experimental signal.

Results: FFT

The first predicted natural frequency is very close to the experimental one. The rest of the natural frequencies of the cube, including the predominant one, 1500 Hz, are predicted by the FE model. There is an additional frequency, 810 Hz, predicted by the FE model:
This may be due to the absence of some structural components such as angle joints and bolts, and holes in the FE model which might have suppressed this additional frequency. The acceleration amplitude of this frequency is small.

Overall, this a very good match for a space frame structure such as the cube comprising of a total of 48 bolts, 36 structural components, and 8 joint locations.

Experimental

Computational

Conclusions
Shock propagation though a space frame with bolted joints is not well-understood. An approach using finite element analysis for predicting shock transmission within such structures is proposed. The proposed approach is verified using a lab-scale space frame structure. Comparing experimental and finite element results lead to the following observations:
The initial peak of the acceleration signals match closely. The FE model is able to predict all the experimental natural frequencies.

Future Work
Incorporate bolts in the FE model. Explore ways for mitigating shocks by optimizing the joint design variables and include shock absorbing material. Expand current research to model shocks resulting from high velocity impact.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Mr. Ami Frydman, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, for interacting with the authors. We are grateful to Dr. Douglas Templeton, U.S. Army TACOM-TARDEC, for being helpful in developing the ideas of this research. This work was funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory under contract DAAD19-03-2-0007.

Thank you

&
Questions?

Robins Comments
(type your name in place of Robin!)

6 comments on what is good in this presentation

The model looks awesome
This is a bad comment! The comment is too abstract No explanation is given for why the reviewer thinks the model is awesome

Good comments:
The quality of mesh is quite good as all the elements comprise of the same element size and even the smallest of the components is finely meshed. The description regarding why the joint halves should not touching each other is informative and useful for other researchers.

8 comments on what the presentation is lacking OR not clear

I dont like the figures
Bad comment Too abstract: all figures? particular figure? Why? Sounds personal than technical (avoid using I, we, this person, this student.)

Good comments:
Not clear on why static material properties were used for a dynamic analysis. Not mentioned anywhere what type of beam elements were used, i.e., will the space frame members acting as beams take into effect the shear in the beams. The natural frequency values, and the axis values on the FFT plots on slide 18 are not clear and too small to read.

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The deadline for the review comments is 14th May 2013 (by 5:00 pm). Email me back the entire presentation with your review comments at the end of the presentation. 8 % of your project grade will be based on how good/bad you have reviewed the assigned project. The review comments for a project will not have an effect on the grade of that project.

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Project grade breakdown:
Structural model: 10% Heat transfer model: 8% Modal analysis model: 4% Presentation (including the results shown in the presentation): 15% Review comments: 8%

Total Project grade: 45% Total HW grade: 50% Inclass: 5%