Ring net modeling

[Settler]

Hello all,

I am trying to create the ring net seen in the image below. Basically each ring is connected to four of the nine "adjacent rings. I'm trying to come up with a good way to orient everything with the minimum amount of slack before running an FEA.

Any idea on the rotation of an individual ring. As far, I see I can create patterns of two. As a result I am looking for:

a. center-to-center distance
b. respective rotations about their two in-plane axes

Any reference or help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[JStephen]

It looks to me like how far it could be stretched in one direction would depend on the tension in the perpendicular direction? So what looks like just a geometrical problem does involve some assumptions as to loading, etc.
If you go down a column of rings, are those rings always in the same plane?
If you go down a column of rings, are all the rings in one column in the same plane?

Sometimes it is easier to vary the actual geometry of an object to fit an "easy" model than it is solve the model based on actual geometry.

 

[Settler]

Thanks for the response.

I'm actually looking for the geometry where the slack will be minimal. As a results there is zero load in this condition.

Answering your questions.

1. Yes, the rings are in the same plane.
2. Yes, the rings are in the same plane.

I'm not looking for an "easy" model. I want to create a high-fidelity one.

 

[JStephen]

It looks like there is more than one position where slack is minimal, if that helps.
That is, the angle to the contact points would depend on ratio of horizontal to vertical load.
But at zero load, that ratio is undefined, so you could move the rings into different positions that would all have zero slack.

 

[Settler]

For a given number of rings, there is only one symmetrical position with zero slack.

 

[MikeHalloran]

The mesh appears to be 'chain mail'. A search on that might be productive, or not.

Working from the photograph, it appears that all the rings in a column can be coplanar,
and all the rings in a row can be parallel, but not coplanar.

It should be possible to define a set of equations defining the zero-slack condition, but it involves finding contact points between toroidal solids, given the two radii defining the unit torus. It just sounds like the kind of thing that makes my head hurt.

I'm curious about what you intend to learn from an FEA.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA