Finite Element Analysis of Oval Steel Coal Scuttle with Double Funnels and Its Unfolded Drawing Automatic Generation

During the design of the second-phase extension project of a fuel electric plant in China, in order to meet the technological requirements, a typical oval steel coal scuttle with double funnels was proposed. This kind of scuttle has a complicated geometrical shape and is difficult to be designed and built. To evaluate the mechanical behavior of this scuttle, the 3D finite element structural analysis was performed by using the software ANSYS. More concretely, the linear elastic static analysis, the elasto-plastic analysis and the buckling analysis were carried out respectively, under two load cases—the whole scuttle is full of coal, one half of the scuttle is full of coal and the other half of the scuttle is empty. The support reactions also were given so as to be capable of providing accurate loads applied on the top of the support beams of the scuttle. The results of calculating and analyzing show that this kind of oval steel coal scuttle is of the better mechanical behaviors and can ensure its running reliably. Further more, in order to be built conveniently and reduce the loss of steel plat as far as possible during blanking and processing, the unfolded drawings were generated automatically by the program written with the language Visual C++ under Object ARX in AutoCAD.