Structural finite element analysis of an electrical lug

An electrical lug has to satisfy the design load bearing considerations. In order to validate the load bearing capability of the lug design finite element analysis with material nonlinearity is required while performing a limit design analysis. This requires considerable amount of time and computing resources. An alternate method of estimating the non linear response with the help of the linear analysis results by applying Neuber´s rule thus saving significant amount of time and computational resources is explored and conditions for the applicability of the Neuber´s rule are stated. The results from the full nonlinear analysis modeling the material nonlinearity and the materially nonlinear results obtained by applying the Neuber´s rule to the linear analysis results are compared. The correlation is almost perfect at some regions while being approximate in other regions. The phenomenon is explored in detail and the causes for deviation from the predictions of Neuber´s rule are gauged and the feasibility of using Neuber´s rule for simplifying the materially nonlinear calculations is evaluated.