The client needed to demonstrate the mechanism behind a container stack failure as part of a court case.
Reproducing the behaviour of a complete container stack presented a complex structural modelling problem. The analysis needed to represent the interaction between the containers and the way loads were transferred through the stack sufficiently accurately to investigate how the failure developed.
A Squared developed a Finite Element Analysis model to simulate the structural behaviour of the container stack.
Rather than unnecessarily modelling every detail of each container, we developed a simplified representation that reproduced the key structural characteristics and interactions governing the behaviour of the real stack. This allowed the failure mechanism to be investigated efficiently while retaining the behaviour needed for the engineering assessment.
The results were then interpreted to establish how the stack responded to the applied loading and why the failure occurred.
The client was provided with a clear engineering explanation of the failure mechanism, supported by numerical analysis.
This gave them technically robust evidence that could be used to support their case in court and helped explain a complex structural failure in a form that could be presented and understood beyond the engineering team.
