weight simulation

[Sara.Velasquez]

hellos, i wanted to run a simulation of a wooden desk with weight on top of it and see how it would deform, the thing is, i dont understand much about the force in fusion, when i place the force, it ads a radius and i don't know what that radius does, does it make the force spread in that area? does it apply the given force to each point of that area?  if i want to put lets say a 20kg sphere on top of the desk, how should i run the simulation?

thank you! 

[Andrew.Sartorelli · Accepted solution]

Hi @Sara.Velasquez,

I'm glad to hear you're interesting in learning more about simulation and FEA, I personally find it a very interesting area. There are a couple different options when applying a force in Fusion 360, you could apply it to the entire face or you limit that area on the face by using limit area. The force you specify is the total force applied, we handle determining the exact value at each node when the model is decoded into the file that is read by the solver. This way you can change the mesh size and not have to worry about changing the loads or constraints.

One issue that you may run into is that wood is typically an anisotropic material, meaning that it's physical properties are different in each principal direction. This comes from the fact that wood has fibers that typically run in one direction, so the behavior in the fiber direction will be different than perpendicular to the fibers. Fusion Simulation does not currently support these type of materials, but you could choose MDF (medium density fiber board) as this would likely be the material a desk from a big box furniture store would be made of. MDF's material properties are the same in all directions, similar to steel or aluminum, but obviously not as strong.

Best Regards,

Andrew
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[Sara.Velasquez]

great, that helps me a lot! 

thank you, have a nice day!