Stress analysis on rivets not working properly

[jacob_astrom]

Hello!

I have an assigment in school in which we are going to calculate the number of needed rivets and their dimensions to join two pieces of aluminum with the dimensions 5x50x200mm together.

I've created the sheet metal and imported two of them into an assembly along with 8 rivets from the content center with the appropiete dimensions. In comes my problem. I planned on running a stress analysis and pasting the pictures of the results in my report. However, I have a feeling that the stress analysis tool isn't working as it should.

No matter what force I'm applying to the sheet metals, and no matter what material I assign to the different parts, including the rivets, the results, the deformation and force applied to the rivets, are roughly the same.

I've applied a force of 12700N to the two short sides of the sheet metals:

The two sheet metals are also fixed on the opposite side of the forces:

Is this wrong, or why do I get results that aren't probable?

I'm including the the sheetmetal, rivet and the assembly hoping that someone could please help me with this!

Assembly: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eik300aqhketca5/Assembly1.iam

Sheet metal: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yalahoe3f8gpo9k/Pl%C3%A5t.ipt

Rivet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/spspwug197tyzel/ISO_R%201051%20-%205%20x%2020%20x%200%2C001.ipt

Thanks in advance!

Jacob

[blair · Accepted solution]

And you should the way you have your model constrained for FEA. If you apply a force at one end of the plate and constrain the other end of the same plate, no force is being transmitted through the joint, or in this case the rivets.

You might want to constrain the far end of of Plat1 and apply the force the far end of Plat 2.

I didn't get into any of the modeling of the components, or if your results will be correct, just why your was not showing any results.