Design Check Plot

The Design Check plot is a very useful tool for verifying the integrity of your design. COSMOSWorks provides a simple three step wizard for setting up a design check plot. The wizard interface guides the user through multiple options. Some of the available options are:

– Select entire assembly or specific components / bodies for FOS estimation

– Multiple failure criteria to select from including:

o Max von Mises Stress
o Max Shear Stress (Tresca)
o Mohr-Coulomb Stress
o Max Normal Stress

Search “Design Check” in COSMOS help for a complete description of each failure criterion and when each should be used.

– Multiple stress units. (The user can pick between N/m², psi, kgf/cm², and N/mm² (MPa))

- Selection of property used to define stress limit including:

o Yield strength
o Ultimate strength
o User defined value

- Ability to enter stress limit multiplication factor. (Similar to a safety factor, this will multiply the stress values by this user specified value before calculating the design check results.)

There are also multiple result options available:

- Factor of safety distribution plot
- Non-dimensional stress distribution plot
- Areas below factor of safety plot

The factor of safety distribution plot is the standard factor of safety plot that everyone is accustomed to. The model is color coded based on the factor of safety at various locations. The non-dimensional stress distribution plot is basically the inverse of the factor of safety plot. For example, if the max von Mises criterion is used, the non-dimensional stress is the von Mises stress at a specific location divided by the yield strength of the material. If you enter a multiplication factor in Step 2 this factor will be applied to the stress before calculating the non-dimensional stress. The last option allows the user to specify a factor of safety. The plot will display all areas below the specified factor of safety in red.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 2:03 pm and is filed under COSMOSWorks, Tips & Tricks, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.