7.15. Case Studies in Plane Stress

A good engineering case study includes all necessary data to analyze a problem in details and may come in many varieties [Refs. 7.8 and 7.9]. Obviously, in solid mechanics it deals with stress and deformation in load-carrying members or structures. In this section we briefly present four case studies limited to plane stress situations and CST finite elements. A cantilever beam supporting a concentrated load, a deep beam or plate in pure bending, a plate with a hole subjected to an axial loading, and a disk carrying concentrated diametral compression are members considered.

Recall from Chapter 3 that there are very few elasticity or “exact” solutions to two-dimensional problems, especially for any but the simplest shapes. As will become evident from the following discussion, the stress analyst and designer can reach a very accurate solution by employing proper techniques and modeling. Accuracy is often limited by the willingness to model all the significant features of the problem and pursue the FEA until convergence is reached.