How do you calculate Stress of a curved beam?

[wormy505]

How do you calculate Stress of a curved beam??

Hi there, I'm new here so I got a project to make a windscreen on solidworks and analysis using FEA no problem :)
However I'm also asked to analysis stress on the windscreen experienced by the air resistance manually, I have worked out the air resistance force 650 N but I have no idea of how to analysis the stress on the windscreen, here is a screen shot of my solidworks file. Also need to analysis strain and deflection.
I don't know how to add a url
http://www.mediafire.com/download/tb414daqwtx5r02/screen_dimensions.png

 

[abrewmaster]

Hey wormy, I just want to warn you by saying that if you don't know what your answer is supposed to be then using FEA could be dangerous since you have no way of knowing whether or not you were using the correct model. On the other hand if you know what the answers are supposed to look like then you can gauge your error that way. As for the stress I think your main problem will end up being dealing with that cross section, luckily you did stuff in Solidworks to help you out. Since you already did FEA on the beam you should be able to determine where the beam will most likely fail, calculate the stress acting at that point and use Solidworks to get information on the cross section at that point. Use statics to determine the forces that will cause the most compression and tensile stresses on the beam. it may be simplified but a good idea of how to use the equations and get an idea of the steps involved to solve this can be found here:
http://site.iugaza.edu.ps/marafa/files/Analysis-of-Curved-Beams.pdf

 

[Aero51]

First and foremost is determining the velocity profile of the wind approaching the beam. A good first approximation is that the profile is uniform (ie a rectangle). Second, you will need a drag coefficient. I suggest looking up Cd for a square. Similar search result may be obtained if you look up bluff bodies.

As for analysing stress, I would assume it would be identical to a beam under gravitational load with fixed boundary conditions as a first approximation.