Steel tank reinforcements

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Permalink Reply by Michael Freytag on October 3, 2013 at 6:22pm

Hello Francesco-

A thin structure like that is going to be hard to simulate accurately within the current version of Scan&Solve using the available resolution.

You can get around that limitation to some extent by assuming the tank walls (the membrane between the reinforcements) do not contribute substantially to the overall behavior except to carry the hydrostatic pressure to the reinforcements.

Reduce the geometry to just the reinforcements:

Then apply SCALED hydrostatic loads to the interior of the framework:

The scale factors for the hydrostatic loads are determined by the ratio of the reinforcement area to the area of the tank face it is supporting:

Instead of applying a liquid density of 1000 kg/m^3 to the end faces, apply a liquid density of 1000 * 3.705/0.65 = 5700 kg/m^3.  To the side faces, apply a density of 1000 * 15.21/2.785 = 5460 kg/m^3.  This assumes the liquid level is at the top.  (Your loading scenario and thus ratios will be different.)

Some results:

For a quick demo on applying hydrostatic loads, see the following video:

Does this help?

BTW, The latest WIP (2013.9.20) fixes a bug in Scan&Solve V1.6 that incorrectly applies hydrostatic loads if the units of the load are different than the units used for the model.  Use the default units in the load dialog and you will be alright.

~Michael

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