MATLAB: Loads and stress that act on flexible beams in Simscape Multibody environment

Question

Hello,

I am using Simscape Multibody for creating a structural model of few flexible beams attached toghedar, like a sort of frame.

My questions are:

1. How can I get the stress (axial stress, bending stress and shear stress, Von Mises stress) inside the beam (along the lenght and for each point of the cross-section)?
2. How can I get the forces and moment that act at the end of each beam?
3. How can I get the forces and the moment along the length of each beam (bending moment graph, normal stress graph, shear force graph)?

I don't want to use the PDE toolbox for 3D meshing and apply FEM techniques to such structure, since a simple beam analysis into Simscape Multibody environment is enougth to give all info assuming a 1D elements (in terms for forces, internal actions, stress). Morover the forces that act inside the beams are already kept into account since the beams tends to bend and stretch due to such forces, but I can't find the way to get such loads and stress info.

Thanks in advance and best regards,

Alberto

Answer 1

Until now I did not find the solution to extract directly the internal stress of the beam, as well as I am not able to find the forces/moment that act along the length of the beam.

Fortunatelly, about the loads at the end of the beam I find a solution. Using two "weld joind", one for each beam end that connect the beam to the other elements of the structure, I am able to extract the forces and moment that act at the ends of the beam. In particular I use the "constraint forces" and "constraint torque" signals.

[EDIT]: I developed a usefull Simscape library that give you all the information about your beams (forces, displacement and even Von-Mises stress and strain)!!

See this link for the BeamStressLib repository.