Trap bar stress/ displacement analysis

Introduction/ purpose
For this project I chose to
analyze a trap bar looking for
stress and displacement
distribution over the bar. Since I
am on a rowing team I have
some weight lifting practices
during the week. I got into
many discussions about where
the maximal stress (stress that
causes deformation) in the bar
occurs, what could be the
maximal defection of a bar and
what would be the best material to build a trap bar from (I actually have a
teammate who thinks an aluminum trap bar would serve our needs just fine). For
these reasons I will test the trap bar by subjecting it to various loads and I will test
the trap bar to two materials: stainless steel and aluminum.
Methods
 First, I design a trap bar in Solid works.
Although the design of the trap bar looks
fairly simple it is not that simple to design it in
Solid Works. The design required the use of
commands Boss Extrude, Sweep, Mirror, and
Filet. Thanks to the symmetry of the bar it was
possible to design only half a bar and mirror
that design over the top plan to get a
complete bar. Another problem with designing
the bar in Solid Works were the dimensions.
Since I dont have appropriate measure tools I
Figure 2a: drawing of a trap bar with couldnt get exact dimension of trap bars that
dimensions
are used in Cabot Sports Center. Thats why I
had to look for trap bars dimension on the
internet and the most exact dimensions I could
find are represented by the drawing in Figure
2a. After finishing the design process in Solid
Works I saved the part as an IGES file so that
ANSYS can read this file. As I read the file in
ANSYS I meshed the bar and set the
displacement of the hand grips to DOF (degrees
of freedom) = 0. Then I set the Youngs
Modulus to 180 GPa (Stainless Steel AISI 302)
Figure 2b: constrains and loads in ANSYS and set the force loads equivalent to 1 plate of
25 kg on each side of the bar. After I got the
results of the analysis I subjected the bar to the force equivalent to 125kg on each
side of the bar (since 25kg plate is the heaviest one and since we can only fit 5
plates on one side of the bar, I decided to test the bar to maximum weight of
125kg). Finally, for the last analysis I changed the Youngs Modulus to 69 GPa
(Aluminum) and subjected the bar to the same loads as for stainless steel. Figure 2b
depicts the DOF constrains on the hand grips and red vectors depict weight of 25kg
plates.

Results

Stainless steel 25kg load on each side of the trap bar

 Figure 3: Plot results for Von Mises Stress distribution

Figure 4: depiction of displacement in y direction

Figure 5: table for Von Mises Stress Figure 6: Table for displacement in y direction
Stainless steel 125kg load on each side of the trap bar

Figure 7: depiction of displacement in y direction

 Figure 8: Plot results for Von Mises Stress distribution

Figure 9: table for displacement Figure 10: table for the Von Mises Stress
in y direction
Aluminum 25 kg load on each side of the trap bar
 Figure 11: depiction of displacement in y direction

Figure 12: Plot results for Von Mises Stress distribution

Figure 13: table for

displacement in y direction Figure 14: table for the Von Mises Stress
 For the first case, where we have a stainless steel bar subjected to 25 kg
weight on each side of the bar, we have max Von Mises stress of 1.13 MPa. The
location of the max Von Mises stress can be seen in Figure 3 where the area with the
max stress is painted in red. Maximal deflection in y direction has value of 0.225 cm
and can be seen in Figure 4.
For the second case, where we have a stainless steel bar subjected to 125 kg
weight on each side of the bar, we have max Von Mises stress of 99.7 MPa. The
location of the max Von Mises stress can be seen in Figure 8 where the area with the
max stress is painted in red. Maximal deflection in y direction has value of 2.35 cm
and can be seen in Figure 7.
For the third case, where we have an aluminum bar subjected to 25 kg weight
on each side of the bar, we have max Von Mises stress of 85.6 MPa. The location of
the max Von Mises stress can be seen in Figure 12 where the area with the max
stress is painted in red. Maximal deflection in y direction has value of 5.94 cm and
can be seen in Figure 11.

Discussion/ Conclusion
At a first glance the results we got from the analysis might be a little odd for
the values of the Von Misses stress. The reason for that is the design of the trap bar
itself. If I had the opportunity to design a 100% accurate replica of the trap bar we
wouldnt see the Von Mises stress values in the range of 100 MPa. The place where
the stress occurs has really sharp edges and it was expected to encounter high
values of Von Mises stress there. Stainless steel proved to be better material from
aluminum since the deflection for the same load for steel was 0.225 cm and far
aluminum it was 5.94 cm. When bar was loaded with maximal weight of 125kg on
each side of the bar it deflected only 2.35 cm.
 References

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/