Large Displacement of Crossbeam Structure through Energy Method

Abstract

This paper undertakes a geometric nonlinear large displacement static analysis of crossbeam structure. A crossbeam structure  comprises two beams in contact with their longitudinal axes perpendicular to each other, used effectively in civil and mechanical engineering, marine and aerospace structures. The energy method forms the basis for the mathematical formulation and the governing set of equations are obtained using the principle of extremisation of the total energy of the system in its equilibrium state. To obtain the solution, an iterative procedure is developed based on the reaction force generated between the two beams of the system. The method is validated by experiment and simulation through ANSYS v11. Results are presented in terms of plots of reaction force and the displacement of the interaction point versus load in dimensional form and additionally, the deflected shapes of the crossbeam structure at static equilibrium condition, under a particular load, are provided. The static response of the system has been studied for variation of beam thickness, loading pattern and position of the supporting beam.