Static analysis of an isotropic rectangular plate using finite element analysis (FEA)

Abstract

This research work aims to analyze the static analysis of an isotropic rectangular plate with various boundary conditions and various types of load applications. In this paper, finite element analysis has been carried out for an isotropic rectangular plate by considering the master element as a four noded quadrilateral element. Numerical analysis (finite element analysis, FEA) has been carried out by developing programming in mathematical software MATLAB and the results obtained from MATLAB are giving good agreement with the results obtained by classical method - exact solutions. Later, for the same structure, analysis has been carried out using finite element analysis software ANSYS. This job is helpful for obtaining the results not only at node points but also the entire surface of the rectangular plate. Finally, comparison has been done between the results obtained from FEA numerical analysis, and ANSYS results with classical method - exact solutions. Numerical results showed that, the results obtained by finite element analysis and ANSYS simulation results are in close agreement with the results obtained from exact solutions from classical method. During this analysis, the optimal thickness of the plate has been obtained when the plate is subjected to different loading and boundary conditions.   Key words: Finite element analysis (FEA), isotropic rectangular plate, ANSYS, static analysis.