KAEG recently completed a project which neatly underlines the importance of being able to look behind the workings of black-box finite element analysis (FEA) software. Perhaps, even more important is the ability to probe and understand the output once you get behind the black-box. See if you can spot the simplest strengthening scheme that we applied for this failing structure by comparing the left and right image!
We received the telecommunications headframe (left image) and it had been marked as failed. It had been run through some FEA software which showed that structural utilisation was over 100%. We took the results apart, probed every member for loading in 6 degrees of freedom. We were able to pin the issue down to one member which was over-utilised in one direction causing loads to be improperly distributed.
The fix: add a simple bracing strut in the left hand corner of the middle triangle to bring the utilisation down to 80% (right image).
KAEG are at the forefront of providing cost-effective design solutions to over-stressed telecommunication structures to ensure continuous safe operations. Contact our expert team at: info@ka-engroup.com to learn more and discuss how we can best serve your needs.
