High transportation demand has led to widening of existing roadways to improve traffic flow. In some cases, the space available on site is limited and the construction of earth retaining walls is done in front of previously stabilized walls. This can lead to retaining wall designs that are narrower than those addressed in current design guidelines. Narrow walls are Mechanically Stabilized Earth...

Many practical finite element models contain long slender regions and areas where the thickness is small in relation to the other dimensions. The slender regions are best modelled using 1D beam elements, while shell or plate type elements should be used to represent any areas consisting of thin walls. These reduced element types are much more efficient than using full 3D continuum elements (whi...

Ankylosaurid dinosaurs have modified distal caudal vertebrae (the handle) and large terminal caudal osteoderms (the knob) that together form a tail club. Three-dimensional digital models of four tail clubs referred to Euoplocephalus tutus were created from computed tomography scans of fossil specimens. We propose to use finite element modeling to examine the distribution of stress in simulated ...

Efficient perturbation schemes are developed to compute the large amplitude, low frequency, galloping vibrations of a multi-span, overhead transmission line. Systematic procedures are formulated to assess the stability of a conductor’s wind and ice loaded static profile by employing a multiple-degree-of-freedom finite element model. The use of the computationally most demanding part of the fini...

Finite element analyses using ANSYS were conducted on orthotropic, polygonal, wood laminated composite poles subjected to a body force and a concentrated load at the free end. Deflections and stress distributions of small-scale and full-size composite poles were analyzed and compared to the results obtained in an experimental study. The predicted deflection for both small-scale and full-size co...

Displacement finite element models of various beam theories have been developed using traditional finite element interpolations (i.e., Hermite cubic or equi-spaced Lagrange functions). Various finite element models of beams differ from each other in the choice of the interpolation functions used for the transverse deflection w, total rotation φ and/or shear strain γxz, or in the integral form u...