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    [Plugin] Finite Element Analysis (FEA) - Spring-mass model

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    • G Offline
      GrojGuy
      last edited by

      I realize this thread is a bit stale, but I am very interested in this as well. After becoming familiar with some of the commercial products available, and seeing what limited modeling interfaces they provide, I definitely think SU would be a great modeling tool to use as the "front-end" for a structural FEA tool. The biggest weakness that I see with many of these commercial products out there is that they try to re-invent the wheel with their front-end modeling interface, and most of the time fail miserably. In one case I actually modeled a project in SU, then exported/imported it as DXF into the structural analysis program.

      The thing is, I don't think the FEA mathematics is any big secret. Complex, yes, but secret, no. Instead, I think it's more a matter of the value-added features like automatic member (re)design based on analysis results, visual analysis reporting/diagrams, regulatory code compliance checking, things like that. It is a fairly complex and involved arena, no question about it.

      In the same way that the commercial structural analysis packages should not have re-invented the 3D modeler wheel, I agree with what has already been said, no reason to re-invent the wheel if a suitable FEA engine can be found and integrated with SU via Ruby scripting.

      Has anyone hear ever looked at LISA? http://www.lisa-fet.com/ This really looks like it could fit the bill for static structural analysis. What is interesting is that it also seems to do other things like hydraulics, which could be interesting for wind loading. OpenSees also looks interesting, that could perhaps be used for the non-linear/dynamic (e.g.) siesmic side of things.

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      • pilouP Offline
        pilou
        last edited by

        A free one: Z88 😉(not for SU)

        Frenchy Pilou
        Is beautiful that please without concept!
        My Little site :)

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        • G Offline
          glro
          last edited by

          It seems that somebody is trying to write something similar

          http://sites.google.com/site/teclait/home

          the structural part is still not available... but it will probably include some finite elements program...

          @qpik said:

          Since I'm an architect I've been looking for an easy way to incorporate FEA into SU. This would add a completely new dimension to design in SU.

          After browsing through some books I found the math a bit to hard so I decided to start off with a simple spring-mass model (to be exact it's not 100% real, instead of a=F/m, s~F/m)

          [attachment=0:2f7ju4i2]<!-- ia0 -->simple_springs.rb<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2f7ju4i2]
          Here is a video example:
          [flash=425,344:2f7ju4i2]http://www.youtube.com/v/ojtHu1yZSUQ&hl=pl_PL&fs=1&rel=0[/flash:2f7ju4i2]

          I hope someone with strong mathematical background would take this on or help me to go on.
          What about SketchyPhysics? I tried it couple of times but I'm not sure it's suitable for this purpose.

          Kuba

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          • bomastudioB Offline
            bomastudio
            last edited by

            @glro said:

            It seems that somebody is trying to write something similar

            http://sites.google.com/site/teclait/home

            the structural part is still not available... but it will probably include some finite elements program...

            Yes, of course ... I'm a structural engineer .... I want to extend TECLA (see the project home

            http://sites.google.com/site/teclait/home

            to build a FEM software based on SU. Ad the moment I'm developing the Architectural modulus (that will be, with some changes, the Pre_processor).
            I'm looking for some FEM software open-source and find some:

            Calculix, GmsH, FreeFEM++ but nothing in ruby!!! Someone has news?

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            • G Offline
              glro
              last edited by

              @bomastudio said:

              @glro said:

              It seems that somebody is trying to write something similar

              http://sites.google.com/site/teclait/home

              the structural part is still not available... but it will probably include some finite elements program...

              Yes, of course ... I'm a structural engineer .... I want to extend TECLA (see the project home

              http://sites.google.com/site/teclait/home

              to build a FEM software based on SU. Ad the moment I'm developing the Architectural modulus (that will be, with some changes, the Pre_processor).
              I'm looking for some FEM software open-source and find some:

              Calculix, GmsH, FreeFEM++ but nothing in ruby!!! Someone has news?

              i am afraid you won't find anything in Ruby; the language has not been used for structural analysis, as far as i know

              but it might not be a problem; you could link a program in Ruby, to another program in another language, by exchanging information through text files

              i did it between Ruby and Basic, and it worked...

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              • bomastudioB Offline
                bomastudio
                last edited by

                @unknownuser said:

                i am afraid you won't find anything in Ruby; the language has not been used for structural analysis, as far as i know
                but it might not be a problem; you could link a program in Ruby, to another program in another language, by exchanging information through text files
                i did it between Ruby and Basic, and it worked...

                yes, it could be done.... 😄

                But, as I'm tryng to develop a FEM engine by myself (I wrote a 2D fem program in MATLAB at University some years ago...), I need a solid matrix/linear algebra library in Ruby. Now the aim is to use it inside SU both in Windows (& Linux+wine) and OSX. I found Matrix.rb but I don't like it ... any suggestion and how use with SU?

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                • T Offline
                  tjlahey
                  last edited by

                  I've just started to use SketchUp, but I have a lot of experience in writing FEA code. One thought I had was to link SketchUp with FEMhub which is being developed with a web-based interface so it could be used in a web view via a plugin. They are working on 1D, 2D, and 3D solvers. Their web interface is a bit much for a plug-in, but it's probably a good place to start.

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                  • S Offline
                    sbolin
                    last edited by

                    @bomastudio said:

                    @glro said:

                    It seems that somebody is trying to write something similar

                    http://sites.google.com/site/teclait/home

                    the structural part is still not available... but it will probably include some finite elements program...

                    Yes, of course ... I'm a structural engineer .... I want to extend TECLA (see the project home

                    http://sites.google.com/site/teclait/home

                    to build a FEM software based on SU. Ad the moment I'm developing the Architectural modulus (that will be, with some changes, the Pre_processor).
                    I'm looking for some FEM software open-source and find some:

                    Calculix, GmsH, FreeFEM++ but nothing in ruby!!! Someone has news?

                    Very interesting idea to have a FEA ruby. I'll be watching to see if anything develops on that front. I sort of agree with the general idea that it may be better to write a translator from SU to an existing FE program, but if it can be done within SU all the better. It does seem like a huge amount of work, though 😮

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                    • bomastudioB Offline
                      bomastudio
                      last edited by

                      Update: I found (thanks to Google!!) this project

                      Link Preview Image
                      Frame3DD - Static and Dynamic Structural Analysis of 2D and 3D Frames

                      Free software for static and dynamic analysis of 3D moment-resisting elastic frames and trusses. Written in ANSI C. Source code includes: frame analysis with elastic and geometric stiffness, LDL' decomposition, LU decomposition, Newton-Raphson iteration, sub-space iteration, Stodola iteration, static condensation, Guyan reduction, dynamic condensation, Matlab support and spreadsheet support. Graphical output and mode shape animation via Gnuplot.

                      favicon

                      (frame3dd.sourceforge.net)

                      released under GPL for Linux (wow!!!), Mac and Windows.
                      It seems very good...... now I'm asking to the author if Frame3DD supports rigid link to model unaligned elements (colums and beams as in the following image

                      https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18236667/Schermata del 2012-07-02 10%3A31%3A55.png

                      https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18236667/rigid_offsets.gif

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                      • S Offline
                        solidbeat
                        last edited by

                        Was wondering if there's been any development on this.
                        Through the last post i found the following.
                        http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=1008
                        But I'm just not good enough at this sort of thing to get it to work...

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                        • Q Offline
                          qpik
                          last edited by

                          Hi guys! I've been away for a while. Anything new in the topic?

                          I'm trying the Frame3D and found this video of another combination - SketchUp/GoSimulate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCVoa1u-9BM

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                          • Q Offline
                            qpik
                            last edited by

                            Seems like someone made it 😄

                            Edit: Actually no. Should've watched it until the end. So there's still a niche.

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                            • A Offline
                              anar
                              last edited by

                              "but at least SU could be used as the CAD modeller for GMSH?"
                              (from a previous post)

                              The "Meshkit" plugin from Peter V seems to do that.

                              Did someone try it ?
                              Because each time I launch SU (SU2015 Make or SU8) I have errors like "Error Loading File C:/Users/PC/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/Plugins/pv_sketchytetgentools/pv_sketchytetgentools_class_loader.rbe"
                              etc.

                              I haven't found any information about this plugin on the forum.
                              So I post here and hope someone might help with my installation problem.

                              Cheers.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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