Elastic support - Replace spring and get forces passed on

Using SimScale Solid Mechanics / FEA
1

Hello

If a spring is between two components and the force of the spring acts on both components, is it possible to replace the spring with an elastic support? (See picture below)

Or is there any other suitable alternative to replace springs in this fashion?

Best Regards
Johan

2

Hi @jflink!

This project from @ahmedhussain18 explains it very well!

Pneumatic actuator with spring and elastic support

P.S.: Also have a look at the documentation Elastic Support

Hope that helps!

Best,

Jousef

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3

Hi Jousefm

Thank you for the answer.

I had a look earlier at that well written guide, but got the impression that the elastic support only contributes a reaction force on the selected area and doesn’t “pass it on”.

So in the case in the picture above, only the upper plate would feel a reaction force but the lower plate would feel no force.

But I might have missed it, will have a closer look when I get home from work.

Best regards
Johan

4

Hi @jflink,
you are exactly right!

One end of the springs generated by the elastic support is fixed in space and the other end is attached to a node of the assigned entity. Each node gets one spring. In total they represent the given spring stiffness with local stiffnesses correctly distributed.

As you said, in your example adding elastic support springs would not work. The model would basically behave as if the lower part would not exist.

This would actually need spring connectors, you can directly create a feature request in our vote for features category.

If you don’t want to model the actual spring, with the current capabilities, I would create a simple surrogate model, basically a beam and modify material parameters such that it represents the compression stiffness of the spring correctly (up to a certain degree). If you have also torsion and bending moments, this might actually not work.

Best,
Richard

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5

Hey Johan,

As @rszoeke already explained what can be done or what can’t. In case you want to look how to perform this kind of analysis with spring, you can have a look at this project: Sideways moving spring v2 - SimScale

Best,
Ahmed

1 Like