AUTOMATED MODELING OF SLABS IN ANSYS USING GRILLAGE ANALOGY AND THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

Technological advances have fostered the widespread use of computational tools in structural engineering, enabling more representative and detailed analyses. The grillage analogy, applied through the Finite Element Method (FEM), is an effective approach for slab analysis. In ANSYS®, this technique can be implemented through APDL (ANSYS Parametric Design Language) input files; however, their manual generation is time-consuming and laborintensive, often requiring thousands of command lines. This study developed a Python-based computational routine to automate the generation of APDL files for grillage-based analysis of slabs and edge beams in ANSYS®. The generated models were validated against slab analyses reported in the literature. Percentage differences in bending moments ranged from 0.21% to 5.09%. The expanded validation included torsional moments and vertical deflections. For torsional moments, differences of 14.44% and 17.53% were obtained for J = 100% and J = 15%, respectively, while reducing J from 100% to 15% decreased the torsional moment by 72.33% in the developed model and 73.06% in the reference study. Vertical deflections showed close agreement with reference values, with differences of 1.08% and 1.48% for the analyzed mesh discretizations. Overall, the APDL Generator provided consistent numerical results while automating the modeling process, supporting its applicability to grillage-based slab analysis in ANSYS®.