Investigation of Dynamic Behaviour of Structures with Heterogeneous Materials

Bahman Hassanati and Dr Marcus Wheel, in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, are using ARCHIE-WeSt to investigate the effect of size on the dynamic behaviour of structures fabricated from heterogeneous materials. A numerical investigation using finite element analysis (FEA) has made it possible to model materials where the manufacturing of small-scale test specimens to identify modal frequencies is difficult or costly. The accuracy of the FEA is highly dependent on the number of degrees of freedom which can become very large for the aforementioned models and thus relies on utilising high-performance computing facilities. Typically, the overall size of these structures is comparable to the microstructural length scale associated with the material and they thus exhibit a marked size dependency in their static and dynamic behaviours. The numerical investigation conducted by FEA incorporates a detailed geometric description of the heterogeneity and helps to quantify any effect of size on the modal frequencies when the effect of the microstructural scale is significant. The overall project goal is thus to identify the structural behaviour at mesoscale dimensions.

For more information contact Bahman Hassanati (bahman.hassanati@strath.ac.uk) or Dr Marcus Wheel (marcus.wheel@strath.ac.uk), Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Strathclyde.

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