Abstract

The primary object for this project was to establish that the ANSYS software is reliable enough when I comes to its practical application. To verify the efficiency of ANSYS software, we decided to compare the results with analytic data and experimental data. To carry out the practical experiment we choose two different types of curved beams. First was the Semicircular curved beam and the other was the quarter circle curved beam. The reasons for choosing these two specimen were, firstly they were easily available in our labs and secondly the calculation on these specimen were easy to conduct. After choosing these, one team carried out experiments on these specimens. Experiments included applying direct loads on these beams and measuring the deflections using deflection meters. These experiments were carried out three times in order to confirm the previous results and to bring forward the best possible results in order to compare it with ANSYS and analytic data. On the other hand the second team was assigned to use ANSYS software and its mesh tools to calculate the deflections and other variables using the same specifications as the lab experiments. After completion of these two experiments, only analytic data was left.

Eventually both the results were put side to side and compared. The results were very astonishing to see. To our surprise, ANSYS performed better than we expected. It showed a least percentage variation of 0.257 when compared to analytic data. These results of ANSYS were remarkably close to the analytic values. Whereas on the other hand, the experimental had a lot more deviation from the analytic values.