ME 422 Homework 1
Distributed: November 30, 2012
Due: December 6, 2012
Suppose that we have a beam which is clamped at the wall. The beam is made of A36 steel
with a Young’s modulus of 30E6 psi and Poisson’s ratio of .27. It is 60 inches long and the
cross section is 1 inch tall x 0.5 inch wide. A point load of 10 lbf is applied near the tip.
10 lbf
1"
60"
Problem 1 What is the deflection of the beam based on classical beam theory (e.g. what
you learned in EM204)? What is the bending stress in the beam?
Problem 2 Use Workbench to find the deflection and stresses in the beam.
(a) First, just use Workbench with the default mesh and try to get a solution. I believe
that you will receive errors. Print out the screen showing the errors and turn it in.
(b) Now go to Mesh → Insert Sizing and select the entire body of the beam. Choose an
element size of 0.25”. Update the mesh and re-solve the problem. Print out the plots
for deflection and bending stress (which stress is the bending stress?) in the beam. I
believe that this should solve fine.
(c) Now refine the mesh again (by making the element size smaller), and print out the
plots for deflection and bending stress with this mesh.
(d) Do your answers from Problem 1 and the finite element analysis in parts (b) and
(c) agree? Carefully account for any discrepancies between the ANSYS results and
your theoretical values from Problem 1.