Date of Award

5-2012

Degree Type

Report

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Wenbin Yu

Committee

Wenbin Yu

Committee

Ling Liu

Committee

Thomas H. Fronk

Abstract

Variational Asymptotic Beam Section (VABS) analysis is a computer code for design and analysis of slender structure such as rotor blades, wind turbine blades, missiles, and rockets more efficiently than a full three-dimensional finite element analysis. VABS enables a rigorously a dimensional reduction of the original three-dimensional nonlinear analysis into a one-dimensional nonlinear beam analysis and a two-dimensional linear cross-sectional analysis. The VABS code has been extensively used in academia and industry for comput- ing the sectional properties and recovering three-dimensional fields of composite slender structures. Recently two graphic user interface, namely VABS-IDE and VABS-GUI, have been developed to automatic the preprocessing and postprocessing for the VABS software. This report uses a few benchmark examples, including a circular aluminum tube, a highly heterogeneous section, a multi-layer composite pipe, and an isotropic blade-like section to validate and compare both tools. And also this report studies the mesh convergence of VABS and loss of accuracy using smeared properties, two questions raised by an industry user.

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