Cranes and lifting equipment pose a unique problem when considered in a finite element analysis. Their sheer size often prevents users from analysing these structures using regular solid elements. Instead, beam elements must be used to reduce the model to a manageable size. The problem with this approach, however, lies in the process of extracting…
Designing equipment intended for use in the bulk material handling industry is no simple task. Engineers need to consider day to day operating conditions as well as unpredictable loadings such as user error/misuse and erratic weather conditions. Simulation software can optimise machine design and gives engineers the capability to decrease project budgets/timeframes and minimise the…
The world of music is dominated by nonlinear devices. From the wood construction of a guitar neck to the neodymium drivers in PA speakers, every device in the chain has a nonlinear response and these are often exploited to produce a unique sound. To predict with certainty how changes to individual components are going to…
The design and construction of composite structures represents a powerful and lucrative industry that is predicted to grow dramatically as demand increases for the high strength, low weight properties possible with composite materials. Part of the ANSYS Workbench environment, ANSYS Composite PrepPost provides tailored tools for the multitude of composite specific problems that face designers…
Today we present a new and easy way to transfer loads from DEM simulations (ROCKY version 3.0 released September 2014) to ANSYS using External Data coupling in ANSYS Workbench. Discrete Element Method and ROCKY The Discrete Element Method (DEM) is a computational technique originally developed in the 1970s that has gained great popularity in recent…
In February 2014, Curtin Motorsport Team’s Frame & Body Technical Lead Nisarg Thakrar and Chassis Thesis Project Lead John Christensen conducted torsional stiffness validation testing on the team’s 2012 chassis. The purpose of this physical testing was to determine the chassis’ actual torsion stiffness value and to validate the results predicted through FEA simulations performed…
Often companies are under huge pressure to minimise the cost and weight of their products and optimise their design. Finite element technology allows engineers to improve their design in a virtual simulation world but often this is done manually using a trial and error approach. By using the optimisation kernel inside ANSYS (powered by GENESIS,…
