果樹枝の大たわみシミュレーションに基づいた曲げ負荷の解析

抄録

Fruit tree branches are deformed with large deflection under mechanical loads such as wind, rain and snow weight, and deformed by fruit weights. The bending stress and strain under deformation are important to evaluate the mechanical strength of long-shaped beam structures. The bending deformation of the beam structure is determined by configuration of applied loads which include amount and location. A bending deformation analysis for tree branch was conducted focusing on the base angle and diameter of the branch in this study. The numerical analysis models were created as the cantilever of tapered shape with a constant elastic modulus. As a simulation result, the large bending deformation for downward reduced the bending moment applied at the base end of branch model. And the base angle for the upward direction made severe bending strain at the base side. The bending deformation simulation was available to estimate the strength of branch geometries and predict the failure location on the branch.