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von Mises Equivalent Stress
Equivalent Plastic Strain
von Mises Equivalent Stress
Equivalent Plastic Strain
Figure 3 ­ Typical sidewall von Mises stress and equivalent plastic strain for the 300 kA base case

The non-reinforced top portion of the cradle is also quite flexible in this design
and bends in plane due to the sidewall thermal dilatation, as shown in Figure 4. The
ANSYS manual [10] recommends at least four elements in the direction of bending for
these members. This effect was therefore not adequately captured with the initial coarse
mesh, once again overestimating the stiffness of the structure. A refined mesh was
therefore used for all the subsequent analyses.
Figure 4 ­ Amplified typical deformed shape of a cradle, showing in plane bending