Tips & Tricks

Improve Productivity Using Scripts [Video Format]

As simulations become more integrated with the design process, engineers often spend time on repeated operations that do not contribute to their productivity. There is a need for tools that could capture, preserve and transfer the knowledge within the organization or to its customers.

Weld Fatigue analysis based on the Dang Van Criteria

Numerical modeling of fatigue behavior has become critical for welding applications. For this purpose the ‘Dang Van criterion’ has been integrated in SYSWELD for fatigue evaluation of welded structure under multi-axial loadings. The Dang Van fatigue damage criterion is used to predict crack initiation and life duration of components subjected to damaging load. This criterion is based on multi-scale approach which assumes that shakedown occurs before crack initiation.

Materials in the database - Which material properties to use with respect to the three methods to simulate the heat effects of welding

A material is described with exactly one set of material properties. In simulation engineering - depending on the applied method and the moment in time when the simulation is carried out in the product development cycle - only subsets of a full material data set might be required. In this article is outlined which subset is used for which purpose, what is available in the database, and what can be simulated.

The challenge of simulating casting and heat treatment

Foundries that have implemented casting simulation to shorten development time, further wish to use simulation in order to reduce the cost of subsequent processing steps. This often requires the simulation of heat treatment.

Grouping parts during data import in CFD-VisCART

When dealing with complex industrial models such as cars and airplanes, hundreds of parts need to be managed. Each one of these parts may also be subdivided into different components. In order to easily manipulate these different parts and components in CFD-VisCART, you can make use of the grouping feature.

Boundary layer meshing with CFD-ACE+ [video format]

The accuracy of a CFD solution is strongly dependent on how well the mesh resolves geometry and flow features. This is especially true for near wall regions (boundary layer) where viscous forces are not negligible compared to inertial forces.

CFD-VisCART: Mesh Extrusion

In most CFD simulations, it is required to place inlets/outlets far enough from the region of interest in order to reduce their influence on the solution. In many applications, this can be done by extruding existing inlets/outlets BC patches away from the domain.

Preserving boundaries between patches with CFD-VisCART’s Single Domain mesher

The ‘Preserve Features’ option does very well in preserving features between geometry patches – as long as the patches are not coplanar (dihedral angle = 0) or include a very small dihedral angle between them.

CFD-VisCART: Suppression of parts for mesh generation

When performing an analysis comparing component A versus component B, it is useful to have both components stored in the same file for physical comparison and documentation purposes. However, when generating the mesh for the analysis, only one of the parts should be considered at a time. The "Suppress" option in CFD-VisCART makes this possible.

Boundary Layer meshing in CFD-VisCART

In order to accurately capture flow field characteristics, a fine mesh near boundary walls is often needed. This is commonly referred to as the Boundary Layer mesh or simply, Boundary Layers. When dealing with structured meshes, one would cluster grid points near specific boundaries before building mesh faces and blocks. But for an automated mesher, dedicated algorithms are needed to generate boundary layer cells. Both CFD-GEOM and CFD-VisCART are capable of generating boundary layer meshes, and they share the same core algorithm.