A Fun Finite Element Project with Abaqus CAE

Let's do something fun, crazy, imaginary, or may be imprecise analysis in Abaqus CAE with some finite element knowledge. Say, a deformable cylinder is pushed through two rigid cylinders with the help of a rectangular rigid block. We are interested to visualize how does the deformation looks like for the deformable cylinder when it passes through the rigid cylinders as depicted in the following image. The radius of all the cylinders is 50 mm. The length and height of the rigid block are 80 and 30 mm respectively.

In this problem, four different parts are created in Abaqus CAE and arranged accordingly to the above specified configuration in the assembly section using the option of “translation of instances”.

Creating Assembly

The following picture shows the assembly.

Steps, Boundary Conditions and Loads

Two steps are created. The first step establishes the contact between the rigid block and deformable cylinder. The second step applies the pressure on the rigid block to push the cylinder between two rigid cylinders. The displacement control approach is used for the loading. The boundary conditions are defined as:

Rigid Cylinder-1: It is fixed in every direction.

Rigid Cylinder-II: It is fixed in every direction.

Deformable Cylinder: No rotation allowed.

Rigid Block: Only motion in negative Y-direction is allowed.

Three instances are generated for the contact. First contact is between the rigid block and deformable cylinder. The next contact is defined between the rigid cylinder-I and deformable cylinder. Finally, the last contact is established between the rigid cylinder-II and deformable cylinder. In all cases, the contact properties are friction coefficient 0.3, penalty method and hard contact. For step-2, the time increment is considered very less due to the fact that there are several contacts in the simulation.

Results

When the cylinder is pushed thoroughly by the rigid block, the Abaqus shows the following results.

The following figure shows the graphs of force and displacement with respect to time of the rigid block when the deformable cylinder is pushed through the two rigid cylinders.

The following images show the Von Mises stress when the deformable cylinder passes through the rigid cylinders. We see that the maximum stress is 390.80 MPa.

This figure shows the Von Mises stress at some particular nodal points of the deformable cylinder.

The following images show the tensile stress when the deformable cylinder passes through the rigid cylinders. We see that the maximum stress is 1675 MPa.

This figure shows the tensile stress at some particular nodal points of the deformable cylinder.

The following images show the shear stress when the deformable cylinder passes through the rigid cylinders. We see that the maximum stress is 293.20 MPa.

This figure shows the shear stress at some particular nodal points of the deformable cylinder.

From the results, we see that the tensile stress is higher than the Von Mises and shear stress, which is 1675 MPa. The magnitude of shear stress is less compared to the other two stresses. We also see extreme distortion in the structure of the deformable cylinder after passing through the rigid bodies.

Enough description! Now it's time to watch the animation of the problem that has just been explained in words and figures.

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