Modelling bolts and area loads

Grasshopper Karamba3D
1

Hi, I am new to Karamba3D and I would very much appreciate some help with the software.

  • I have a truss that is illustrated in the figure below. The truss is composed of two individual components (one of the components is outlined in red for illustration). The two components are connected through bolts at the black circled areas. How can I go about modelling the bolt within the program?
  • I want to define the load on the truss as an area load. I have made a mesh as illustrated in the figure, and attempted to apply a uniformly distributed loading over the mesh. However, I am not sure if it’s actually working, since the element at the mid of the top chord doesn’t seem to be registering any load. Please let me know if I am on the right track and how I can proceed, or if I should use another method to apply area loading.

Bolts
Bolts1088×918 145 KB

Thank you for your help!

2

Hi
you can model the screws with the actual cross section - as a solid round element.
If you turn on the mesh edges of your mesh (CTRL+M) you can see the density of your mesh. The reason why there is no line load applied to the center element is most likely due to a large mesh division. If you increase the density of your mesh you should see a more accurate distribution of the loads.

best,
Matthew