Experimental Investigations and Simulation of Strain in Developable Surfaces

Abstract

Surface modeling is a technique used for representation and shape design of complex objects such as car, ship and airplane bodies etc, which cannot be achieved through wireframe modelling. Their use in engineering and design environment can be extended beyond just geometric design and representation due to the richness in information of surface models. The main objective of the present work is to generate a developable surface and to observe the total strain induced during the deformation of the developable surface along the length, width and thickness direction. A MATLAB program has also been developed to know the nature of the surface: whether the surface is developable or non developable. The deformation in the surface has been done in two parts. A flat sheet is formed into a curved shape and then the formed curved shape is again formed to regain its original shape. Further experiment has been performed to observe the strain generation during different stages of the deformation. A 3-Dimensional FE (Finite element) model has also been developed to understand the behavior of the sheet during the bending and forming operations. A good agreement between the experiment and the simulated strain distribution was observed in this study.