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Direct Method - Derivation of Stiffness Matrix

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15 views12 pages

Direct Method - Derivation of Stiffness Matrix

Uploaded by

George
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Direct method

Starting with only one element beam subject to bending and shear forces. There are 4 nodal
degrees of freedom. Rotation at the left and right nodes of the beam and transverse displacements
at the left and right nodes. The following diagram shows the sign convention used for external
forces. Moments are always positive when anti-clockwise direction and vertical forces are
positive when in the positive direction.

The two nodes are numbered and from left to right. is the moment at the left node (node
1), is the moment at the right node (node 2). is the vertical force at the left node and is
the vertical force at the right node.

The above diagram shows the signs for the applied forces directions when acting in the positive
sense. Since this is a one dimensional problem the displacement field (the unknown being solved
for) will be function of one independent variable which is the coordinate. The displacement
field is in the vertical direction called . This is the vertical displacement of a point on the
beam from the . The following diagram shows the notation used for the coordinates
Angular displacement at of the beam is then found using At the left node the
degrees of freedom, or the displacements, are called and at the right node called .
At an arbitrary location in the beam, the vertical displacement is and the rotation is
.

The following diagram shows the displacement field

In the direct method of finding the stiffness matrix, the forces at the ends of the beam are found
directly by the use of beam theory. In beam theory the signs are different from is shown in the
first diagram above. Therefore, some of the moment and shear forces obtained using beam theory
( and in the diagram below) will have different signs when compared to the external
forces. The signs are then adjusted to reflect the convention as shown in the diagram above using
and .

For example, the external moment is opposite in sign to and reaction is opposite to
. To illustrate this more, a diagram with both sign conventions is shown below.
The goal now is to obtain expressions for external loads and in the above diagram as
functions of the displacements at the nodes .

In other words, the goal is to obtain an expression of the form where is the
stiffness matrix, is the nodal forces or load vector, is the
nodal displacement vector. In this case will be a matrix and is a vector and
is a vector.

Starting with , it is in the same direction as shear force . But hence

But

, (from beam theory), hence


But and where is radius of curvature, therefore

But

and for small angle of deflection hence , and the above becomes

Before continuing, the following diagram illustrates the above derivation. This comes from beam
theory.

Now will be obtained. is in the opposite sense of bending moment hence a negative
sign is added giving . But hence
Now is calculated. It is in the opposite sense of shear force , hence a negative sign is
added giving

But

, hence

But and where is radius of curvature therefore

But

and for small angle of deflection hence and the above becomes
Finally is in the same direction as so no sign change is needed.
hence

The following is a summary of what was found so far. Notice that the above expressions are
evaluates at and accordingly to obtain the nodal end forces vector

(1)

Now the RHS of the above is expressed as function of nodal displacements . To


do that, the field displacement which is the transverse displacement of the beam is
assumed to be a polynomial in of degree 3. Hence

Polynomial of degree was used since there are degrees of freedom, and a minimum of free
parameters are needed. Hence

(2)

and

(3)
Assuming the length of the beam is , then

(4)

and

(5)

eqs (2-5) gives

Solving for gives

Hence the field displacement function from eq. (A) can now be written as function of the
nodal displacements

or in matrix form
The above can be written as

Where the are called the shape functions. The shape functions are

Notice that

and

as expected. Also

and
and

and

and

and

The shape functions have thus been verified.

The stiffness matrix is now found by substituting eq (5A) into eq. (1), repeated below

Hence

(6)

But

and
and

and

and now do the second derivatives

and

and

and
Hence eq (6) becomes

or in matrix form, after evaluating the expressions above for and

The above now is in the form

Hence the stiffness matrix is


Knowing the stiffness matrix means knowing the nodal displacements given the forces at the
nodes. The power of the finite element method now comes after all the nodal displacements
are calculated by solving because the polynomial is now
completely determined and hence and can now be evaluated for any along the beam
and not just at its end nodes. Eq. 5A above can now be used to find the displacement and
everywhere

Therefore, these are the steps to obtain

1. Find an expression for


2. Solve for
3. Calculate by assuming is a polynomial. This gives the
displacement to use to evaluate the transverse displacement anywhere on the beam
and not just at the end nodes.
4. Obtain to evaluate the rotation of the beam any where
and not just at the end nodes.

5. Obtain strain where is the gradient matrix


6. Obtain stress from
7. Obtain the bending moment diagram from
8. Obtain shear force diagram from

2.1 Examples using the direct beam stiffness matrix

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