A free, rigorous cross-section analysis tool for engineers 2

[handofthelion]

Hi all,

I'd like to share with you a free python program that analyses an arbitrary cross-section using the finite element method:
GitHub Page
More Info

It outputs properties that can be used in structural design, such as the second moment of area, elastic and plastic section moduli, torsion constant, warping constant, shear centre, shear areas and many more. The program also calculates normal and shear stresses resulting from an acting axial force, bending moments, torsion moment and/or transverse shear forces.

I made this because I couldn't find anything out there that was free, gave me everything I wanted, could analyse any section imaginable, or was super easy to use, so I hope I've fulfilled all the above.

Always happy to receive feedback, positive or negative, but I hope it's useful for at least one other person

my structural engineering blog

 

[IDS]

Thanks for sharing, looks great.

You can do most of the section properties without FEA of course, but not the torsion or warping constants.

Thanks also for the links to meshpy, which I didn't know about.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[IDS]

Somewhere I found some links for downloading meshpy for Windows users, but now I can't find them.

Do you have a link?

OK, found it:

https://github.com/robbievanleeuwen/section-properties

Scroll down to getting started.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[handofthelion]

The installation of meshpy on windows wasn't as easy at it should be, let me know if you have any issues!

my structural engineering blog

 

[IDS]

I have been doing some work with this, and everything is working fine. I copied the Meshpy folders to the folder with your code, and everything works with no problem.

I have set up a couple of Excel user-defined functions using xlwings. These read the input data from the spreadsheet and also return all the numerical results to the spreadsheet. The geometric results agree exactly with my section properties spreadsheet, to machine precision. I'm about to check the shear and torsion results against a FEA program.

At the moment the graphics (optionally) display in sequence in their own graphic box, the same as running direct from Python. I'll have a look at writing these as Excel graphics later.

I'll post some examples on my blog in a few days (with a link to your site).

Thanks again for all your work on this, and making it available.

p.s. I gave a presentation on limit state design methods last week, and used the Citicorp story from your site as an example.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[handofthelion]

Great to hear that you've got it to work and are extending it in Excel! I think that it's important to make it user-friendly for the engineering community. Unfortunately I don't have the experience to implement it effectively in Excel (the engineer's favourite tool!) so am very excited to see what you do with it!

Looking forward to your blog post and flick me an email if you have any questions! Oh and glad to see you enjoyed the Citicorp story, it really is one of the 'engineering thrillers' haha!

my structural engineering blog

 

[handofthelion]

Also FYI I pushed a small modification to the code to GitHub today which slightly modifies the plastic centroid algorithm in an attempt to make it more robust for strange shapes.

my structural engineering blog

 

[IDS]

I have now published an Excel front end to the Python code:

Section Properties with MeshPY, including torsion and warping

Any comments/questions, please let me know.



Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/