How Thick Should Composite Panels Be to Replace Aluminum in Structural Designs?

[M.D.G]

For a summer job I am employed to look into the use of composite paneling in place of sheet aluminum with stiffeners. I am suppose to find the required thickness of composite wall paneling in order to make a structure such as the one attached. Obviously it will depending on the material properties of the panel, however assuming I know those, do you have any ideas on how I would go about this. I would be designing for a distributed load of 200 psf. I could do this if it was a uniformly distributed load or point load and a beam, but I am having trouble modeling this structure. For example I have no clue what this objects moment of inertia is, which is required. Any ideas?

 

[M.D.G]

Just to update this, I have done some searching on the forum about the use of FEM. Would the best course of action to solving this be to model the part in a program like ANSYS? I know the distributed load and the part dimensions (except for the thickness, this is what I am trying to calculate) Any recommenatons on programs or tutorial for software that would be good for this application would be much appreciated.

 

[agurvinder]

For a summer job I am employed to look into the use of composite paneling in place of sheet aluminum with stiffeners. I am suppose to find the required thickness of composite wall paneling in order to make a structure such as the one attached. Obviously it will depending on the material properties of the panel, however assuming I know those, do you have any ideas on how I would go about this. I would be designing for a distributed load of 200 psf. I could do this if it was a uniformly distributed load or point load and a beam, but I am having trouble modeling this structure. For example I have no clue what this objects moment of inertia is, which is required. Any ideas?

hello there,
maybe i can help you. first make it clear about the use of that panel you are talking about like what kind of SUPPOSED loads are going to act on it. for example, a Masonary wall which is constantly subjected to wind pressures apart from the active Earth pressure it has to bear.

after getting at least the nature of the loads, you can approach the designing by either using a software or calculating it manually. but mostly do software after at least you have tried to get some basic calculations.

Softwares for the same are ANSYS, COSMOWORKS, NX etc.

 

[agurvinder]

M I of the object completely depends on the section. Try to analyse diff sections and get an optimum one. the formulations for the same are easily available on the net