Element size effect on the analysis of heavy-duty machine cross-rail

Abstract

Heavy-duty gantry machine plays an important role in the energy, shipbuilding, aerospace, transportation and military industry and other pillar industries, and is a manifestation of national equipment manufacturing capacity. Cross-rail is one of the key structural components, and its natural frequency affects the dynamic performance of the machine. It is difficult to obtain the accurate analysis of natural frequency by using the analytical method because of the complex internal structure. The finite element method is a general method to obtain natural frequency, but, is also difficult to obtain the precise result, because the analysis result depends on many factors, such as meshing manners, the constraint conditions, joint parameters, damping, and so on. The density of mesh is an important factor to affect the analysis result especially. Theoretically, the smaller element, the closer to the true result. But more dense grid could sharply increase the degree of freedom, and result in the insufferable solving speed in the analysis of the cross-rail. So to find a balance point between the speed and the accuracy becomes very meaningful. In this paper, the modal analysis was carried out on the cross-rail. The paper focus on exploring the influence of different element size on the results of the analysis. In order to verify the correctness of the modeling, the modal testing is carried on the cross-rail, and the experimental result is adopted to prove the correctness of finite element modeling.

Effect of Mesh Density on Finite Element Analysis Simulation of a Support Bracket

“…Therefore, it is logical to allocate finer mesh in the regions of interest (Bitencourt et al, 2015). Wang et al (2016) examined the effect of mesh size on finite element analysis of heavy-duty cross rail using ANSYS and compared simulation and experimental results.…”

Investigation of Mesh Size Effect on Dynamic Behaviour of an Assembled Structure with Bolted Joints using Finite Element Method

“…Recently several researchers have investigated the effects of mesh sizes on the accuracy of FE analysis results in various types of simulation [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Other studies have shown the relation of the mesh sizes with the accuracy of the FE modal analysis [9][10][11][12]. Nevertheless, to the best of authors' knowledge, no work focusing on the effects of mesh sizes on the FE modal analysis for the assembled structure with bolted joints has been found so far.…”