Stress testing in design phase

killaspec

I am big into upcycling or recycling. I am in the process of designing a shelving unit made from old pallets that I am pulling a part.

I am a little worried that once I have put the shelves together that the weight of stuff I have will make them crumble. At present I have the model almost complete in sketchup once I am happy with the 3D version I will do the final design in AUTO CAD.

My question is this: is there a free program out there that can do electronic stress test on my design so that I can plug the wholes before I build the shelves.

Many thanks

Matthew swart

mawk

austodesk's inventer does to my recollection.

but if its made of pallets then its pretty cheap, and the materials will be inconstant. make a prototype and load on tripple the intended weight. see what happens

tommy.obr

This sort of project is really not suitable for computer analysis, its realy not practical. Simple Structural design caclulations could give you a rough idea but as mawk said its difficult to the materials properties accuratley, and design calculations of any sort are based on these.

If your unsure about calculations use something like Linpro to confirm you calculations. Try and Simplify either the entire structure or elements of it to 2d models. Send me your sketchuo model if you'd like some more input