Karamba simple question

Hello everyone,

I'm a beginner in Karamba so the question is very basic:

I would like to know if apart from giving as an input lines or meshes and define in a later phase the cross section for stress calculation, it is possible to calculate directly the stresses within a given solid.

The reason why I would like to do that is because I have a series of beams with different cross section along its length.

Thanks in advance!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on January 24, 2014 at 10:57am

You can simulate a variable cross section by splitting the variable beam into short segments and varying the cross section for each segment.

The shorter the segments, the better the approximation but also the larger possible numerical errors.

Another way would be to emulate the variable cross section with a number of shell elements.

Permalink Reply by allanimals on January 24, 2014 at 11:00am

Thank you very much for your fast reply. I guess I should do the same (split it into smaller parts) if the solid is more complex, such like a solid shell with a changing thickness, right?

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on January 24, 2014 at 1:35pm

A KARAMBA shell has constant thickness, just as a beam has constant cross section. So if you would model a solid beam like a wooden beam, shell or beam would make no difference.

Shell modelling would good to simulate a rectangular or I-section steel beam. Those would in reality be welded from steel plates made of constant thickness. Selecting a larger I-beam section would also vary the material thickness used to build the I-section...

Permalink Reply by allanimals on January 27, 2014 at 4:00am

Thank you very much for the explanation, now it is much more clear.

Changing the cross section of a 3d-shell must be quite a harsh job to do, so maybe instead I try first with another Finite Analysis software rather than Karamba. However, I would really like to stay with grasshopper to be able to modify the geometric parameters interactively. Do you know if it is possible to bring and export data in a loop from another software into rhino or grasshopper directly?

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