Pre-bending of shell elements

[camille.berube]

Hi everyone!
I’m trying to evaluate the stiffness of a shell structure, using pre-bent elements (timber or metal) attached together. The goal is to simulate the bending of the strips, which is supposed to give stiffness to the structure, and then apply a point load to see how the structure would deform.

My main issue is finding a way to simulate the added stiffness generated by the bending of the strips. So far, I tried using the component “initial strain” but I feel like it isn’t working because whenever I disable it, nothing seems to change.

If anyone could have a look at the definition and help me solve this issue it would be great.

Thank you and best regards! Pre_Bent_Shell_Karamba_Question_V1.gh (55.1 KB)

[matttam (Matthew Tam)]

Hi @camille.berube

at the moment, you have applied 18 different loads about the local x axis. If you select 1 of these and apply it local to the y axis you will see that the initial strain can be seen. If you want to apply different loads to each strip, then you need to assign elementIDs so that Karamba which elements those loads are applied to.

Turning on the LocalAxes in the ModelView allows you to visualise the axes of the shell.