Question

Problem Statement (Good luck…): Using Saint-Venant’s Principal and its importance to the analysis of stress acting on a volume element within a body and finite element theory, why is it “technically” incorrect and unrealistic to apply a point load while running a finite element simulation?

Answer 1

Saint Venant's principal states that "The difference between the effect of two different but elastically different loadsbecomes very small at sufficiently large distance from load. " When we consider this in Finite element methodology the application the force applied on the element if it is a point load it will be applied on the single node which may have a adverse effect, especially while looking at the stree in that area. The concentrated loads imposes high stress gradients. Even though the high stress gradient are correct but realistically no loading in reality can reasonably true for concentrated loading as there would be no real life senario which can be represented by the model.

This is the reason why the forces are commmonly applied as distributed loads namely line loads or surface loads which are closer to reality.