Planning in Ansys®

The Importance of Planning

As you begin your model generation, you will (consciously or unconsciously) make a number of decisions
that determine how you will mathematically simulate the physical system:
• What are the objectives of your analysis?
• Will you model all, or just a portion, of the physical system?
• How much detail will you include in your model?
• What kinds of elements will you use?
• How dense should your finite element mesh be?
In general, you will attempt to balance computational expense (CPU time, etc.) against precision of results
as you answer these questions. The decisions you make in the planning stage of your analysis will largely
govern the success or failure of your analysis efforts.
Determine Your Objectives
This first step of your analysis relies not on the capabilities of the ANSYS program, but relies instead on
your own education, experience, and professional judgment. Only you can determine what the objectives of
your analysis must be. The objectives you establish at the start will influence the remainder of your choices
as you generate the model.
Choose a Model Type (1-D, 2-D, 3-D, etc.)
Your finite element model may be categorized as being 1-Dimentional, 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional, and
as being composed of point elements, line elements, area elements, or solid elements. Of course, you can
inter-mix different kinds of elements as required (taking care to maintain the appropriate compatibility
among degrees of freedom). For example, you might model a stiffened shell structure using 3-D shell
elements to represent the skin and 3-D beam elements to represent the ribs. Your choice of model
dimensionality and element type will often determine which method of model generation will be most
practical for your problem.
LINE models can represent 2-D or 3-D beam or pipe structures, as well as 2-D models of 3-D axi-
symmetric shell structures. Solid modeling usually does not offer much benefit for generating line models;
they are more often created by direct generation methods.
2-D SOLID analysis models are used for thin planar structures (plane stress), "infinitely long" structures
having a constant cross section (plane strain), or axi-symmetric solid structures. Although many 2-D
analysis models are relatively easy to create by direct generation methods, they are usually easier to create
with solid modeling.
3-D SHELL models are used for thin structures in 3-D space. Although some 3-D shell analysis models are
relatively easy to create by direct generation methods, they are usually easier to create with solid modeling.
3-D SOLID analysis models are used for thick structures in 3-D space that have neither a constant cross
section nor an axis of symmetry. Creating a 3-D solid analysis model by direct generation methods usually
requires considerable effort. Solid modeling will nearly always make the job easier.
Meshing
The process of discretization is dividing the domain and boundaries in to sub-domains. The essential
requirements of discretization is the “Production of a good quality mesh”, it is a major topic. The mesh
should be fine enough for good detail where information is needed, but not too fine, or the analysis will
require considerable time and space in the computer. A mesh should have well-shaped elements -- only mild
distortion and moderate aspect ratios. This can require considerable user intervention, despite FEA software
promotional claims of automatic good meshing. The user should put considerable effort into the generation
of well-shaped meshes. This will include setting element densities, gradients in element size, concatenation
of lines or areas to permit mapped meshing, playing with automatic meshing controls, and re-meshing
individual areas and volumes until the result looks "just right".
Remember that most finite elements are stiffer than the real structure. For these elements, a coarse mesh
generally results in a structure that under predicts deflection, and over predicts buckling load and vibration
frequency. A coarse mesh is less sensitive to and "hides" stress concentrations. A fine mesh generally gives
an answer closer to the exact solution. A fine mesh also results in larger models, more data storage, and
longer model solution and display times.
Shell versus Solid versus Beam Elements. Ideally, structures would be represented for Finite Element
Analysis by solid elements, for this would eliminate the problem of positioning the mid-plane of shell
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elements, exactly represent the sectional properties of components, and position welds in their design
location. Unfortunately, there would have to be several solid elements through the thickness of sheets of
steel or aluminum to capture local bending effects with any accuracy, and the other dimensions of the
elements would have to be kept small so that the aspect ratios of the elements were acceptable.
Consequently, the number of elements would be unbelievably large. It is not feasible to model many thin-
wall structures with solid elements. Shell elements are the solution.
Of course, beam elements are even simpler and more efficient, when structures employ beam-like details.
There are occasions in FEA work when structural beams (including I, wide-flange, channels and angles) will
be more fully represented as shells or solids, in order to examine in detail how they are behaving, or
interacting with the structure where they are connected to other parts. Structural steel tubing and rolled
sections can sometimes be simplified as beam elements.
Decide How Much Detail to Include
Small details that are unimportant to the analysis should not be included in the solid model, since they will
only make your model more complicated than necessary. However, for some structures, "small" details such
as fillets or holes can be locations of maximum stress, and might be quite important, depending on your
analysis objectives. You must have an adequate understanding of your structure's expected behavior in order
to make competent decisions concerning how much detail to include in your model.
In some cases, only a few minor details will disrupt a structure's symmetry. You can sometimes ignore these
details (or, conversely, treat them as being symmetric) in order to gain the benefits of using a smaller
symmetric model. You must weigh the gain in model simplification against the cost in reduced accuracy
when deciding whether or not to deliberately ignore un-symmetric features of an otherwise symmetric
structure.
Determine the Appropriate Mesh Density
A question that frequently arises in a finite element analysis is, "How fine should the element mesh be in
order to obtain reasonably good results?" Unfortunately, no one can give you a definitive answer to this
question; you must resolve this issue for yourself. Some of the techniques you might employ to resolve this
question include:
• Use adaptive meshing to generate a mesh that meets acceptable energy error estimate criteria. (This
technique is available only for linear static structural or steady state thermal problems. Your
judgement as to what constitutes an "acceptable" error level will depend on your analysis
requirements.) Adaptive meshing requires solid modeling.
• Compare the results of a preliminary analysis with independently derived experimental or known
accurate analytical results. Refine the mesh in regions where the discrepancy between known and
calculated results is too great. (For all area meshes and for volume meshes composed of tetrahedra,
you can refine the mesh locally with the NREFINE, EREFINE, KREFINE, LREFINE, and
AREFINE commands (Main Menu> Preprocessor>-Meshing-Modify Mesh>-Refine At-entity
type).)
• Perform an initial analysis using what seems to you to be a "reasonable" mesh. Reanalyze the
problem using twice as many elements in critical regions, and compare the two solutions. If the two
meshes give nearly the same results, then the mesh is probably adequate. If the two meshes yield
substantially different results, then further mesh refinement might be required. You should keep
refining your mesh until you obtain nearly identical results for succeeding meshes.
• If mesh-refinement testing reveals that only a portion of your model requires a finer mesh, you can
use sub modeling to "zoom in" on critical regions.
Mesh density is extremely important. If your mesh is too coarse, your results can contain serious errors. If
your mesh is too fine, you will waste computer resources, experience excessively long run times and your
model may be too large to run on your computer system. To avoid such problems, always address the issue
of mesh density before you begin your model generation.

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Exercise
Generate: H = 1.5 and W = 2.25