ANSYS BASIC INTERMEDIAT

ADVANCED POSTPROC.COMMAND PRINTABLE
UofA ANSYS Tutorial  

UTILITIES TUTORIALSE TUTORIALS

TUTORIALSTUTORIALSLINE FILES
VERSION  

Effect of Self Weight

Distributed Loading
Transient Analysis of a Cantilever
NonLinear Analysis Beam
Solution Tracking

Buckling

NonLinear Materials

Dynamic - Modal
Introduction
Dynamic - Harmonic This tutorial was created using ANSYS 7.0 The purpose of this tutorial
Dynamic - Transient is to show the steps involved to perform a simple transient analysis.
Thermal-Conduction

Thermal-Mixed Bndry

Transient Heat

Axisymmetric

Index

Contributions

Comments

MecE 563 Transient dynamic analysis is a technique used to determine the dynamic
Mechanical Engineering
response of a structure under a time-varying load.
University of Alberta
The time frame for this type of analysis is such that inertia or damping
effects of the structure are considered to be important. Cases where such
ANSYS Inc.
effects play a major role are under step orimpulse loading conditions,
for example, where there is a sharp load change in a fraction of time.

If inertia effects are negligible for the loading conditions being

Copyright © considered, a static analysis may be used instead.
2001
University of Alberta
For our case, we will impact the end of the beam with an impulse force
and view the response at the location of impact.
Since an ideal impulse force excites all modes of a structure, the
response of the beam should contain all mode frequencies. However, we
cannot produce an ideal impulse force numerically. We have to apply a
load over a discrete amount of time dt.

After the application of the load, we track the response of the beam at
discrete time points for as long as we like (depending on what it is that
we are looking for in the response).

The size of the time step is governed by the maximum mode frequency
of the structure we wish to capture. The smaller the time step, the higher
the mode frequency we will capture. The rule of thumb in ANSYS is

time_step = 1 / 20f

where f is the highest mode frequency we wish to capture. In other

words, we must resolve our step size such that we will have 20 discrete
points per period of the highest mode frequency.

It should be noted that a transient analysis is more involved than a

static or harmonic analysis. It requires a good understanding of the
dynamic behavior of a structure. Therefore, a modal analysis of the
structure should be initially performed to provide information
about the structure's dynamic behavior.

In ANSYS, transient dynamic analysis can be carried out using 3

methods.

 The Full Method: This is the easiest method to use. All types of

non-linearities are allowed. It is however very CPU intensive to
go this route as full system matrices are used.
 The Reduced Method: This method reduces the system
matrices to only consider the Master Degrees of Freedom
(MDOFs). Because of the reduced size of the matrices, the
calculations are much quicker. However, this method handles
only linear problems (such as our cantilever case).
 The Mode Superposition Method: This method requires a
preliminary modal analysis, as factored mode shapes are
summed to calculate the structure's response. It is the quickest of
the three methods, but it requires a good deal of understanding of
the problem at hand.

We will use the Reduced Method for conducting our transient analysis.

Usually one need not go further than Reviewing the Reduced Results.
However, if stresses and forces are of interest than, we would have to
Expand the Reduced Solution.

Preprocessing: Defining the Problem

The simple cantilever beam is used in all of the Dynamic Analysis
Tutorials. If you haven't created the model in ANSYS, please use the
links below. Both the command line codes and the GUI commands are
shown in the respective links.

Solution: Assigning Loads and Solving

1. Define Analysis Type
o Select Solution > Analysis Type > New Analysis >
Transient
o The following window will appear. Select 'Reduced' as
shown.
2. Define Master DOFs
o Select Solution > Master DOFs > User Selected >
Define
o Select all nodes except the left most node (at x=0).

The following window will open, choose UY as the first

dof in this window

For an explanation on Master DOFs, see the section

on Using the Reduced Method for modal analysis.

3. Constrain the Beam

Solution Menu > Define Loads > Apply > Structural >
Displacement > On nodes

Fix the left most node (constrain all DOFs).

4. Apply Loads

We will define our impulse load using Load Steps. The

following time history curve shows our load steps and time steps.
Note that for the reduced method, a constant time step is
required throughout the time range.
We can define each load step (load and time at the end of load
segment) and save them in a file for future solution purposes.
This is highly recommended especially when we have many load
steps and we wish to re-run our solution.

We can also solve for each load step after we define it. We will
go ahead and save each load step in a file for later use, at the
same time solve for each load step after we are done defining it.

o Load Step 1 - Initial Conditions

i. Define Load Step

We need to establish initial conditions (the

condition at Time = 0). Since the equations for a
transient dynamic analysis are of second order,
two sets of initial conditions are required; initial
displacement and initial velocity. However, both
default to zero. Therefore, for this example we
can skip this step.

ii. Specify Time and Time Step Options

 Select Solution > Load Step Opts >
Time/Frequenc > Time - Time Step ..
 set a time of 0 for the end of the
load step (as shown below).
 set [DELTIM] to 0.001. This will
specify a time step size of 0.001
seconds to be used for this load
step.
 iii. Write Load Step File
 Select Solution > Load Step Opts >
Write LS File

The following window will appear

 Enter LSNUM = 1 as shown above and

click 'OK'

The load step will be saved in a file

jobname.s01

o Load Step 2
i. Define Load Step
 Select Solution > Define Loads > Apply
> Structural > Force/Moment > On
Nodes and select the right most node (at
x=1). Enter a force in the FY direction of
value -100 N.
ii. Specify Time and Time Step Options
 Select Solution > Load Step Opts >
Time/Frequenc > Time - Time
Step .. and set a time of 0.001 for the end
of the load step
 iii. Write Load Step File

Solution > Load Step Opts > Write LS

File

Enter LSNUM = 2

o Load Step 3
i. Define Load Step
 Select Solution > Define Loads > Delete
> Structural > Force/Moment > On
Nodes and delete the load at x=1.
ii. Specify Time and Time Step Options
 Select Solution > Load Step Opts >
Time/Frequenc > Time - Time
Step .. and set a time of 1 for the end of
the load step
iii. Write Load Step File

Solution > Load Step Opts > Write LS

File

Enter LSNUM = 3

b. Solve the System

o Select Solution > Solve > From LS Files

The following window will appear.

o Complete the window as shown above to solve using LS

files 1 to 3.

Postprocessing: Viewing the Results

To view the response of node 2 (UY) with time we must use
the TimeHist PostProcessor (POST26).
1. Define Variables

In here we have to define variables that we want to see plotted.

By default, Variable 1 is assigned either Time or Frequency. In
our case it is assigned Frequency. We want to see the
displacement UY at the node at x=1, which is node #2. (To get a
list of nodes and their attributes, select Utility Menu > List >
nodes).

o Select TimeHist Postpro > Variable Viewer... and the

following window should pop up.

o Select Add (the green '+' sign in the upper left corner)

from this window and the following window should
appear

o We are interested in the Nodal Solution > DOF Solution

> Y-Component of displacement. Click OK.
o Graphically select node 2 when prompted and click OK.
The 'Time History Variables' window should now look as
 follows

2. List Stored Variables

o In the 'Time History Variables' window click the 'List'
button, 3 buttons to the left of 'Add'

The following window will appear listing the data:

3. Plot UY vs. frequency

o In the 'Time History Variables' window click the 'Plot'
button, 2 buttons to the left of 'Add'

The following graph should be plotted in the main

ANSYS window.
 A few things to note in the response curve

 There are approximately 8 cycles in one second.

This is the first mode of the cantilever beam and
we have been able to capture it.
 We also see another response at a higher
frequency. We may have captured some response
at the second mode at 52 Hz of the beam.
 Note that the response does not decay as it should
not. We did not specify damping for our system.

Expand the Solution

For most problems, one need not go further than Reviewing the
Reduced Results as the response of the structure is of utmost
interest in transient dynamic analysis.

However, if stresses and forces are of interest, we would have to

expand the reduced solution.

Let's say we are interested in the beam's behaviour at peak

responses. We should then expand a few or all solutions around
one peak (or dip). We will expand 10 solutions within the range
of 0.08 and 0.11 seconds.

1. Expand the solution

o Select Finish in the ANSYS Main Menu
o Select Solution > Analysis Type >
ExpansionPass... and switch it to ON in the window that
pops open.
 o Select Solution > Load Step Opts > ExpansionPass >
Single Expand > Range of Solu's
o Complete the window as shown below. This will expand
10 solutions withing the range of 0.08 and 0.11 seconds

2. Solve the System

Solution > Solve > Current LS

SOLVE

3. Review the results in POST1

Review the results using either General

Postprocessing (POST1) or TimeHist
Postprocessing (POST26). For this case, we can view the
deformed shape at each of the 10 solutions we expanded.

Damped Response of the Cantilever Beam

We did not specify damping in our transient analysis of the beam. We

specify damping at the same time we specify our time & time steps for
each load step.

We will now re-run our transient analysis, but now we will consider
damping. Here is where the use of load step files comes in handy. We
can easily change a few values in these files and re-run our whole
solution from these load case files.

 Open up the first load step file (Dynamic.s01) for editing Utility

Menu > File > List > Other > Dynamic.s01. The file should
look like the following..
 /COM,ANSYS RELEASE 5.7.1 UP20010418 14:44:02
08/20/2001
 /NOPR
 /TITLE, Dynamic Analysis
 _LSNUM= 1
 ANTYPE, 4
 TRNOPT,REDU,,DAMP
 BFUNIF,TEMP,_TINY
 DELTIM, 1.000000000E-03
 TIME, 0.00000000
 TREF, 0.00000000
 ALPHAD, 0.00000000
 BETAD, 0.00000000
 DMPRAT, 0.00000000
 TINTP,R5.0, 5.000000000E-03,,,
 TINTP,R5.0, -1.00000000 , 0.500000000 ,
-1.00000000
 NCNV, 1, 0.00000000 , 0,
0.00000000 , 0.00000000
 ERESX,DEFA
 ACEL, 0.00000000 , 0.00000000 , 0.00000000
 OMEGA, 0.00000000 , 0.00000000 , 0.00000000
, 0
 DOMEGA, 0.00000000 , 0.00000000 ,
0.00000000
 CGLOC, 0.00000000 , 0.00000000 , 0.00000000
 CGOMEGA, 0.00000000 , 0.00000000 ,
0.00000000
 DCGOMG, 0.00000000 , 0.00000000 ,
0.00000000

 D, 1,UX , 0.00000000 , 0.00000000
 D, 1,UY , 0.00000000 , 0.00000000
 D, 1,ROTZ, 0.00000000 , 0.00000000
 /GOPR
 Change the damping value BETAD from 0 to 0.01 in all three load
step files.
 We will have to re-run the job for the new load step files.
Select Utility Menu > file > Clear and Start New.
 Repeat the steps shown above up to the point where we select
MDOFs. After selecting MDOFs, simply go to Solution > (-
Solve-) From LS files ... and in the window that opens up select
files from 1 to 3 in steps of 1.
 After the results have been calculated, plot up the response at
node 2 in POST26. The damped response should look like the
following
Command File Mode of Solution   
The above example was solved using a mixture of the Graphical User
Interface (or GUI) and the command language interface of ANSYS. This
problem has also been solved using the ANSYS command language
interface that you may want to browse. Open the .HTML version, copy
and paste the code into Notepad or a similar text editor and save it to
your computer. Now go to'File > Read input from...' and select the file.
A .PDF version is also available for printing.