10/4/22, 2:47 PM What is Structural Analysis?

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What is Structural Analysis?

Posted on September 14, 2020 by graspengineering

Structural analysis is the process of determination of effects of load and

calculating internal forces on physical structure and their components. It
is mainly used to check the structural integrity to withstand the loads of
the structures and their impact on engineering design. Structural analysis
obeys the set of standards and physical law such as applied mathematics,
material science and applied mechanics to calculate the structure
deformation, reactions, stresses, acceleration, etc.  It allows engineers or
designers to ensure structure or their components are safe for use under
the estimated loads as expected to withstand.

Structural analysis thus is very important of engineering design of

structure and primarily used in civil engineering which includes buildings,
bridges: and in aerospace & offshore engineering which includes aircraft
frames, ships & topside module: and in mechanical engineering for
pressure vessel, tanks and reactors, etc.; as well as for non-building
structures from other engineering branch work.

Loads on Structure:
There are mainly two types of load, the first one is dead load which consist
the weight of whole structure including attached parts. For examples,
building dead load mainly consist weight due to columns, beams, floors
slab, walls, roofs, girders and attached parts like, plumbing, electric
fixtures and other miscellaneous parts, etc. The second type of load is live
load which is not constant but vary due to in magnitude and movement of
the object (people, vehicle, etc.), for example, highway bridge loads,
railroad bridge loads, impact loads, there few more environmental loads
which comes under live load category like snow loads, earthquake load,
wind loads and other natural loads, etc. Once dimensional requirement are
defined, the loads coming on structure are identified then it is necessary to
determine the loads structure can withstand. There are mainly two
building codes are available which provides the design loading for
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structure. The first one is general building code and second one is design
codes, the structural engineers must satisfy these code requirements for
to

Structure Classification:
A structural system consist not only its structural elements but also their
connecting parts, materials, etc. It includes various elements like truss,
beam or column, walls, stiffeners, an arch, connecting rod and frame, etc.
All these individual elements are undergone the loads (forces) during
structural analysis and results are seen for all these elements. It is
important for structural engineer to study the behavior of the structure and
its elements under the applied structural loads.

Types of Structural Analysis Methods:

The decision on structure is safe or not is taken based on the analysis
results. The typical analysis results includes support reaction, stresses
and deformation which are then compared with the assessment (failure)
criteria. Structure is said to be safe if analysis results meets the criteria.
There are mainly three methods of structural analysis. The first two
methods are suitable for linear elastic models uses closed form solution
and solved by analytical formulations also called as hand calculation
methods.

The Mechanics of Materials Method (Strength of

Materials):
This is simplest method suitable for simple structure for specific loading
like circular shaft subjected to torsion, bars with axial loads, pure bending
scenario, etc. The entire structure like truss can be analyzed with this
methods in combination with method of sections & method of joints for
truss analysis, moment distribution & cantilever method for small and
large rigid frame. In this method, the solutions are based on linear
isotropic infinitesimal elasticity Euler–Bernoulli beam theory. If you are
looking structural analysis for more complex structure then you will either
need to refer FEA method or other civil structure software’s, etc.

Elasticity Theory Method:

In this method, the solution is derived from equations of linear elasticity. It

uses elasticity equations like partial differential equation. It is suitable for
simple geometries and useful for individual members such as column,
beams shafts, shells, plates and stiffeners, etc. for complex geometric,
FEA method is necessary.

Finite Element Analysis Method:

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It is most commonly used numerical method for structural analysis. Here

the continuous system of structural member like plate or shells are
modelled using discrete system with finite number of element (meshing)
interconnected at finite number of points (nodes) and the entire structure
stiffness is the calculated based on addition of the stiffness of the each
and every elements. It is based on matrix algebra to solve systems of
simultaneous equations, partial differential equations and hence it is also
called as matrix methods of structural analysis. It is computer based tool
which has been developed and used long before for simulating and
analyzing engineering products and systems. In this method, software
codes uses various mathematical equation (stiffness, force and
displacement matrix formulation) to predict the behavior of each
elements. Furthermore, computational methods and various failure
theories are used to combine the responses, which is used to predict the
overall behavior of the analyzed part. It provides results like reaction
(forces and moments), displacement, and stresses on each member of the
structure. And hence it is more suitable for complex structure analysis
which involves various load events, such as offshore structure subjected
to wave & current loading, topside module structure subjected to dead, live
and wind loads, etc. Figure 1 shows the simplified topside module total
deformation plot. This topside module is mounted on FPSO, which are
subjected to various load events such as wind load & dead load, etc. The
structural analysis for topside module will produce results in the form of
stresses, deformation and reactions on each structural member and their
respective joints (Present results for the critical joints within the structure).
Thus FEA method is very useful method to find the behavior of structure
for various load events.

Figure 1: Topside Module Deformation Plot

fea static analysis structural analysis

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Structural Analysis
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