Mobile Fabricated Structures

Design & simulation solutions for mobile fabricated structures.

Mobile fabricated structures require lightweight materials that do not compromise structural integrity, allowing for easy transport and assembly. Engineers must also consider the complexities of modular design, ensuring components fit together seamlessly while maintaining durability under varying loads and use cases.

Simulation can aid in the design of mobile fabricated structures by enabling engineers to test a wide variety of load conditions on a range of different designs quickly and efficiently.

Worst Case Event Analysis

Structures used to transport heavy equipment on roads are subject to emergency avoidance and other severe vehicle manoeuvres such as fast braking, acceleration, cornering, side-impact and rotational loads that may cause structural failures and subsequent injury or damage.

Carrying cradles, chassis and trailers are simulated with inertial loads to understand if these fabricated structures will be able to withstand violent forces. Usually these events can be assessed under both quasi-static and transient response analysis types, depending on the stiffness and mass of the structure and payload.

Optimising Unloading Efficiency

Quick and efficient unloading is critical for customers. If the truck bed is poorly designed, material may stick to the sides or remain in the bed due to friction or poor discharge angle. this will result in longer unloading times and delays.

Rocky DEM can simulate how different bed angles and surface finishes (e.g., smooth vs. textured) affect material flow during unloading. By adjusting the design in simulation, engineers can visualise how materials will behave when tipping the bed, identifying the ideal geometry for complete discharge.

Occupant Safety Analysis

Certain structures have a strict requirement to keep operators and occupants safe under short highly dynamic events or load cases. Usually protective structures are validated through destructive lab tests which are costly and time consuming to iterate.

Design standards exist that allow safety structures such as ROPS and FOPS to be simulated under quasi-static energy absorption type analysis. This allows the analyst to determine if any part of the structure will intrude into the Deflection Limiting Volume (DLV). Multi-purpose structures such as the chassis of a car must also protect the occupants through absorbing and deflecting energy away from the occupants. This can be done through explicit dynamic crash simulations.

Multi-Body Dynamics (is this a use case?)

Kinetics and kinematics of multi-body machines need to be considered against the design requirements. Cars, robots, industrial machinery and even the human body are all systems in which many elements work together toward a coordinated outcome.

Through seamless synchronisation of their many interconnected parts, these interdependent systems are present throughout our world, in everything from bicycles and heart pumps to satellites. To design, optimise, and maintain these complex mechanical organisms, engineers rely on the predictive power of multibody dynamics simulation.

Multi-Body Simulation enables engineers to:

Observe the transient dynamics within a system — every component from start to finish.
Avoid the costs of physical testing by identifying potential design problems before an entire system is built.
Explore how changes to system materials and configuration can optimise performance.
Test systems against environmental conditions that are difficult to replicate.
Model complex systems in their entirety to avoid the inaccurate results that can happen with localised or static simplifications.

Seaworthiness & Mooring System Strength

The safety of ships, vessels and other off-shore structures are important because it directly impacts risk and safety. Failure to do so will result in very expensive loss of equipment and loss of life.

The importance of wave loading on structures, and introduced methods of hydrodynamic analysis based on design requirements cannot be understated. Simulation addresses many analysis requirements associated with the hydrodynamic assessment of all types of offshore and marine structures. These include SPARs, FPSOs, semi-submersibles, tension leg platforms, ships, renewable energy devices, and breakwaters.

Truck Trailer Turn Table

Preventing truck trailers from rolling over through the redesign of the fifth wheel through dynamic load testing and fatigue analysis.

The maximum deflection and durability of the fifth wheel can be estimated through simulation which enables mutliple virtual design iterations before a costly physical protype is built. Engineering decisions are informed during the conceptual and detail design phase to solve future problems now.

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