Advantages, Limitations and Error Estimation of Mixed

Solid Axisymmetric Modeling

Sudeep Bosu
TATA Consultancy Services
Baskaran Sundaram
TATA Consultancy Services,
185 Lloyds Road,Chennai-600086,INDIA
Abstract
The key to successful analysis of large structures often depends upon the analyst's ability to minimise the
computational effort. An efficient method to reduce the computational effort is the mixed modeling of
axisymmetric and 3D solid elements in ANSYS. This approach can be adopted for geometries possessing
significant axisymmetric regions like turbine and compressor disks. The model size in these cases is large
and consequently a large memory and disk space are needed to solve these models. Also, a variety of
analyses are required to be executed on these models, like, thermal, structural, modal, etc. The finite
element model building exercise is operationally more intensive than conventional method, which involves
full 3D sectorial modeling, but it is more than offset by the time saved while running model for different
analyses.
However one needs to fully comprehend the limitations and errors that might be introduced and equate
them with the advantages, while adopting this technique. The scope of this study is to investigate the
advantages and limitations of this approach for different analyses. A study is conducted to establish the
validity of the interface conditions, material and load scaling by comparing with a sectored 3D model for a
simple model where results are easy to comprehend. The model was also analysed for determining the
various limitations and drawbacks the methodology can impose for different analyses and the conclusions
in this regard are made.
In this approach, the section of the model which is completely axisymmetric is modeled using
axisymmetric elements, sections which are cyclic symmetric are modeled with 3D elements as one sector
with symmetry boundary conditions and sections which are not cyclically symmetric are modeled in full.

Introduction
The continuing challenge for any CAE analyst is to provide reliable solution in the shortest possible time.
The time constraint of the situation and computational resources available, result in the analyst's
assumptions towards simplification of the simulation. These assumptions could be the root cause for errors
and limitations (apart from those which are always present in any numerical simulation). It is therefore
required to get a clear idea as to the limitations, capabilities and errors that are likely to be present
whenever a simulation methodology is adopted. This work is aimed at providing an insight into the
methodology, advantages and limitations and errors that are likely to be present while using the mixed 3Daxisymmetric modeling approach.

Methodology
This section describes the steps to be followed while creating a model using the axisymmetric-solid
approach. It also provides the justification for the application of scaled boundary conditions and material
properties.
The crucial concept to keep in mind when using axisymmetric and solid elements in the same model is that
the axisymmetric elements represent the full 360 behavior of the geometry and the solid elements should
be modified to represent the physical characteristics of the entire 360.

The steps involved in modeling are:

1.

Identify axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric sections of the model

2.

Generate 2-D and 3-D geometry. Add a small part of the axisymmetric section in the 3-D model to
have sufficient margin for the transition to take place

3.

Generate mapped mesh of linear MESH200 elements on the surface of 3-D model that connects to
the axisymmetric section. Mesh 3-D section with either hexahedral or tetrahedral elements

4.

Generate 2-D mesh of the axisymmetric section with linear axisymmetric elements along the edge
that connects to the 3-D geometry. Make sure that the axisymmetric elements follow the
requirements of ANSYS for example, global Y axis being the axial direction and the elements
lying on a XY plane with Z coordinate being zero.

5.

Rotate the solid section nodes about their Y-axis so their X-axis projects radially away from the
global Y-axis (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Solid element nodes rotated in axisymmetric coordinate System

6.

Couple nodes on the interface that are located at a common radius in the radial and axial directions
(Figure 2)

Figure 2. Compatible boundary conditions at the interface

7.

From this nodal set, constrain all the nodes (except nodes shared by axisymmetric elements) in the
circumferential direction (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Boundary conditions for the solid region

8.

Apply appropriate symmetry boundary conditions on the cut surfaces of 3-D model (Figure 3)

9.

Scale up the following material properties of the solid section, by N (where N is the total no. of
solid sectors in the model) Elastic modulus, Density, Thermal conductivity, Specific heat (in case
of transient analysis involving mass, you need to scale up only density and not specific heat). The
material properties are not to be scaled for the axisymmetric section.

10. Scale up the following loads by N, Force, Pressure, Moment and Convection coefficient on the
solid section. The loads on the axisymmetric section are not to be scaled.
Normal Finite Element Analysis is degree of freedom (Dof) based and this requires us to maintain Dof
compatibility between the solid and axisymmetric zones. ANSYS assembles the stiffness matrix for
axisymmetric elements considering a 360 perspective as,

K=

2 1 1

EBr J ddd

(eqn. 1)

0 1 1

for the solid elements it is,

1 1 1

K=

1 1 1

EB J ddd

(eqn. 2)

where, B is the element strain displacement matrix, E is the material property matrix, J is the jacobian
matrix and ,, are the natural coordinates.
Since the solid model is sectored, the stiffness calculated for the same, will be the result of integration over
the respective sector angle and not 360 or 2 radians as shown in equation 2. This implies the K matrix
will be under valued by a factor of N. To over come this numerical issue the E matrix (in turn the material
properties) is scaled up by the same factor.
During postprocessing, the Dof's (displacements for structural and temperatures for thermal) are calculated
correctly where as the integrated quantities like stresses and heat flux in the solid zone are scaled up by N.
To postprocess derived terms,
1.
First select the axisymmetric elements and retrieve results only for the selected elements
2.

Select only the 3-D elements, scale these results by 1/N and append them to the results
already stored in step 1.

3.

Plot stresses for the entire model.

Model Description
A solid model featuring symmetric and axisymmetric regions is shown in Figure 4 and solid-axisymmetric
model in Figure 5.

Figure 4. Sector Model

Figure 5. Solid-Axisymmetric Model

The model is built with SOLID92/87, SOLID95/90 and/or PLANE42/55 elements. The model details are:
Table 1 Finite Element Model Details

Sector Model
Solid Axisymmetric Model

No of
Elements
26082
12457

No of
Nodes
98192
30361

Active Dof's
(Thermal)
289953
89354

Active Dof's
(Structural)
98192
30361

The model is subjected to different types of analysis, namely, thermal, structural and modal.
All the analyses mentioned in this paper are performed using ANSYS v7.0, on Dell Precision workstation
340, Windows 2000, P4, 2 GHz, 2 GB RAM machine. The analyses were carried out with default memory
model.

Analysis Results & Discussion

Thermal
Table 2 and Figure 6 below illustrate the time taken for the 45 sector model and the mixed model, to solve
a steady state thermal problem using three different solvers available in ANSYS.

Table 2 Disk requirements and Thermal runtimes for the Sector and Mixed models
PCG

Sparse

Disk space(MB)

CP Time (sec)

34.88

68.39

66.19

15.06

40.55

56.81

40.71

45 Sector
Solid-axi
% Savings

Disk space(MB)

Frontal

CP Time (sec)

Disk space(MB)

CP Time (sec)

76.78

1363.38

621.27

23.38

30.50

251.19

69.25

64.68

60.28

81.58

88.85

Percentage savings between sector and mixed model for Thermal

Analysis
100

88.9

90

81.6

Percentage reduction

80
70
56.8

60
50

60.3

64.7
CPU Time
Disk Space

40.7

40
30
20
10
0
PCG

Sparse

Frontal

Solver Used

Figure 6. Percentage savings for thermal ANSYS

It may be observed from the above table and graph that there is a consistent amount of saving in both solver
time and disk space. The reduction in solution time is more pronounced in case of direct solvers (in this
case, sparse and frontal). There is also a reduction in the requirement for space as the assembled matrices
are much smaller. The thermal analysis has the advantage of carrying only one DOF per node. On the
whole, it was observed that the method reduces computational effort to a large extent without
compromising on the quality of solution.

Structural
Structural analysis is performed successively after the thermal analysis, with structural loads and
temperature distribution from the thermal analysis. Table 3 and Figure 7 below show comparison between
the mixed and sector models.
Table 3 Disk requirements and structural runtimes for the Sector and Mixed models
PCG
Disk space(MB)

45 Sector
Solid-axi
% Savings

Sparse

CP Time (sec)

Disk space(MB)

Frontal

CP Time (sec)

Disk space(MB)

CP Time (sec)

51.31

213.92

296.37

299.34

13956.58

12524.74

28.38

72.78

90.50

73.36

1655.06

773.20

44.70

65.98

69.46

75.49

88.14

93.83

Percentage savings between sector and mixed model for

Structural Analysis
110
93.8

100

Percentage reduction

90
80
70

75.5
66.0

88.1

69.5

60
50

CPU Time
44.7

Disk Space

40
30
20
10
0
PCG

Sparse

Frontal

Solver Used

Figure 7. Percentage savings for structural analysis

There is a marked reduction in the solution time between the sectored model and the mixed model. This
may be attributed to the difference in the active DoF's. The benefit increases with the adoption of direct
solvers for solution. Above results indicate quite substantial savings both in solution time and disk space,
on the adoption of the mixed modelling technique. All this is possible with much less memory requirement
as can be seen in the case of PCG solver which requires almost 65% less memory to solve the mixed model
as compared to the sector model.
This sometimes can be the dividing line between a feasible simulation and an impractical one such as the
structural analysis with frontal solver as mentioned in Table 3 and Graph 2. This results in huge disk space
savings to the tune of Giga bytes for large models. The sector model required a space of 13.6 GB for the
formulation of the triangulated matrix while the mixed model required only 1.6 GB for the same analysis.
The major concern in performing structural analysis with mixed model is the axisymmetric loading and the
response of the structure and the incursions of the non-axisymmetric stresses and deflections into the
axisymmetric zone. This puts extra responsibility on the analyst to select the zones appropriately using
proper engineering judgment.

Modal
Modal analysis is computationally intensive as it involves the assembly of multiple matrices and their
solution. The solution process is also more complicated as the iterative solver operates enclosed by the
eigenvalue solver. The extension of the mixed model approach to the modal regime needs some
modification to the boundary conditions mentioned in the methodology section.
Modal analysis is best performed with the whole model as even though most modes may repeat in a
symmetrical model but the full model is required to capture certain modes undetectable in sector models.
As the simulation of the whole model requires large computational resources, analysts often resort to
application of different boundary conditions on a cyclic symmetric sector model to capture all the modes.
These often include application of symmetric, antisymmetric and coupled end boundaries. ANSYS
provides the cyclic symmetry module to overcome these issues.

In order to understand the modal characteristics of the mixed approach, three simple shaft models were
created as listed below
1) With the solid and axisymmetric interface being along an axial plane (hereafter referred as Axial
Zoning)(figure 8)

Figure 8 Shaft model with axial zoning

2) With the solid and axisymmetric interface being along a radial plane (hereafter referred as Radial
Zoning)(figure 9)

Figure 9 Shaft model with radial zoning

3) The full sectoral 3D solid shaft model (hereafter referred as Solid Model)
The boundary condition mentioned previously permits the eigenvalue solution of the model assuming
symmetric BC's which results in the incapability of the model to detect certain frequencies topped by the
torsional ones. Table 4 below shows the first ten frequencies obtained from a shaft model,

Table 4 Frequencies from analysis with symmetric boundary conditions

Mode #

Mixed model
(Axial -Zoning)

Mixed Model
(Radial-Zoning)

Solid model

127.98

128.62

128.68

183.79

184.29

184.40

329.35

335.00

331.39

349.31

356.17

350.69

386.42

391.58

388.18

396.34

406.42

400.19

449.03

454.84

451.20

532.96

549.90

538.71

534.44

550.62

539.90

10

559.16

568.83

562.80

From the above, it may be possible to conclude mathematically, that there is no appreciable difference
between the frequencies with the radial model being stiffer and axial softer than the sector model. However
the errors are within a range of 2%.
Another set of eigenvalues can be obtained by the assumption of antisymmetric boundary conditions at the
sector faces.
Table 5 Frequencies from analysis with antisymmetric boundary conditions
Mode #

Mixed model
(Axial -Zoning)

Mixed Model
(Radial-Zoning)

Solid model

227.15

121.76

242.48

238.91

285.85

323.76

347.40

321.28

404.50

376.82

403.99

490.95

396.92

411.77

552.63

449.51

465.02

587.06

536.33

478.79

588.10

572.42

521.84

603.49

585.07

651.85

606.74

10

589.46

714.64

649.42

The frequency values of the mixed model in Table 5 are not consistent with the sector model as the
stiffness in this case in not able to duplicate the solid model due to the inherent symmetricity present in the
axisymmetric elements.
Inorder to overcome this problem of inbuilt symmetricity the simulation was performed by replacing the
axisymmetric PLANE42 elements with harmonic PLANE25 elements.

Table 6 Frequencies from analysis incorporating harmonic elements with antisymmetric boundary
conditions

Mode #

Mixed model with

Harmonic Elements
(Axial -Zoning)

Mixed model with

Harmonic Elements
(Radial -Zoning)

170.28

121.76

235.85

149.00

238.91

285.85

347.40

286.12

376.82

321.28

377.82

403.99

399.88

412.22

449.51

465.02

536.33

479.17

10

572.42

521.84

The major improvement was observed in the axial zoning case, where the first torsional frequency was not
only captured and also expanded.
The use of ANSYS cyclic symmetric option overcomes these limitations to some extent for the mixed
modeling approach. However, it was observed that the full model frequencies predicted did not match the
mixed model cyclic symmetry analysis. This could be due to the inherent limitations in ANSYS cyclic
symmetry procedure which forces us to redefine interface conditions. A more detailed study, in order to
obtain boundary conditions compatible with the ANSYS cyclic module is required.

Conclusion
With judicious selection of the solid and axisymmetric zones, the methodology of mixed simulation using
solid and axisymmetric elements is quite advantageous for thermal and structural analysis. The extension of
the method to modal analysis though may be of interest but will lead to errors in prediction of eigen values
which is more pronounced for torsional or non symmetric modes. Additionally mode shape visualization is
not reliable as the even though the eigenvalues may be mathematically predicted by the solver the
expansion pass is incapable of simulating the same. Improvisations can be made with the substitution of
harmonic elements in place of axisymmetric elements particularly in order to predict the torsional
frequencies. However the authors would recommend a far cautious approach while resorting to modal
analysis using this method.

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