ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the authors examine in detail a triangular element in plane stress. They consider a plane stress problem for which their automatically generate a grid. The authors explain triangular elements with natural coordinates to study the case of plane stress. They discuss a computer-generated mesh for triangular elements. The authors provide principal stresses corresponding to the abovementioned stresses. They also consider an example of a finite element computation for a single element. At each element centroid, the SAP IV program will give their normal and shear stresses for the global axes of the problem. In the plane stress problems undertaken up to now, it was simple to generate a desired mesh by hand. However, for more complex geometry and for a very fine mesh, this becomes a difficult procedure, and the authors must then rely on automatic mesh generation via the computer.