Abstract

This chapter is devoted to an application of a finite element method formulation to forecast the static and mechanical behavior of catenary-like structures subject to general force distributions, whose development was motivated by the need of installing assemblies of containment structures, called log boom lines, upstream a hydroelectric power plant to protect its integrity from the threats that logs carried through the river pose on it. Each log boom is modeled by a tridimensional truss element and the entire lines by assemblages of trusses. While the external forces, modeled with the aid of both simulations from computational fluid dynamics and experiments from a towing tank, originate from both the river stream and the logs that accumulate through the extension of the lines, the internal forces are calculated from classic expressions of solid mechanics; hence, the numerical method imposes equilibrium between them, which ultimately defines the geometry assembly. Verification and validation were performed at both model and prototype scales, and the results corroborated the accuracy of the tool for a series of flow conditions.

Keywords: finite element method, fluid-structure interaction, containment grids, catenary-like, numerical simulation
