The research activity, carried out during the PhD course, focused on application of finite element method to the design of innovative devices.
In the first part of this thesis the fundamental formulation of finite element method is discussed. Then as the first part of the PhD course, the dynamic modelling of flexible link robots under large displacements and small deformations was studied and implemented. A dynamic model, based on Finite Element Method (FEM), was developed and implemented into a simulator running in a Matlab environment. Several flexible link robots, both 2D and 3D, have been simulated, and the results have been discussed.
In the second part of the PhD course, a thermo-mechanical analysis of fire door subjected to a fire was carried out. First, a fire door was subjected to standard fire tests to evaluate fire resistance. The thermal and structural response of the three-layer fire door exposed to high temperature was modelled using finite element software. The model included the necessary complication of the real door. Temperature dependency of the constituent materials was also considered in the modelling. Two different kinds of elements were used for modelling the door, namely solid and shell elements. The accuracy of the model was evaluated by a comparison between the response of the software simulator and the experimental data. The comparison between simulated and measured data confirms that the proposed approach can be a valid tool for a fire door design, allowing the development of customized solutions to ensure fire safety in structures.
