Tips & Tricks

Horse saddle distortion modelling in Visual Weld

Welding of structures involves complex interactions between thermal, metallurgical and mechanical phenomena leading to residual stresses and distortions, which play a major role during subsequent service of these structures. Controlling material characteristics, residual stress and keep distortion within tolerances via the computer can significantly enhance the performance, the quality of the product and the structure’s service life

Overview of CSM Welding Advisor in Visual Environment 18.0.2

This tip is to give an overview of new CSM welding advisor in Visual Environment 18.0.2. This new advisor comes in replacement of Visual Welding advisor and uses Assembly solver to perform transient welding simulation.

Demonstrator of typical Stamp-Assembly process in automotive BiW manufacturing

New Stamp-Assembly non-confidential tutorial available

Internal injection lines modeling

Internal injection lines on a shell model (i.e. made of internal element edges) are not supported by the parallel solver.

Direct Opening of a mesh

The creation of a RTM project and loading of the model mesh is usually done in 2 steps.

Coupling between PAM-FORM and PAM-RTM: multiple part mapping

Coupling between PAM-FORM 2G and PAM-RTM is done through a .DSY file. Thus, pre-forming process is simulated with PAM-FORM 2G and resulting fiber orientations that will affect permeabilities are transferred to PAM-RTM model setup.

How to report and talk about simulation time in an objective manner

Reporting or talking about simulation time is a difficult subject. In the article a way to manage this problem in an objective manner is given.

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 transient method – the third out of three methods to simulate the heat effects of welding

In order to meet different requirements from first design to start of production, three different methods are available in the Virtual Welding & Assembly Suite from ESI. The third one – the transient method – is used when not only distortion but also residual stresses and microstructure need to be evaluated. The part size allows running a heat source gradually. Compare it with a formability evaluation in sheet metal forming. A motorcycle rim may serve as an example.

The instantaneous method – the second out of three methods to simulate the heat effects of welding

In order to meet different requirements from first design to start of production, three different methods are available in the Virtual Welding & Assembly Suite from ESI. The second one – the instantaneous method – is used when not only distortion but also residual stresses and micro-structure needs to be evaluated, but welded designs are so huge that it would make no more sense to use a classic transient method with a moving heat source – the simulation time would be too long. Compare it with a feasibility evaluation in sheet metal forming. A frame as produced in machine building, with more than 100 welds, may serve as an example.