Hi to everyone,
my name is Francesca. I would like to know if there is in Prepomax the possibility to impose a uniformly distributed load over a selected edge and how can I do that. Thank you very much in advance.
Check this thread: Traction load on edge
There’s no load type for that. You would have to manually determine proper concentrated force loads or use a rigid body constraint. But edge loads on solids should be avoided in most cases.
indeed, use surface patch loads to avoid singularity.
PrePoMax have feature in compound part of CAD geometry, it can be useful for preparing analysis model (display or hide part) which actually the mesh is continuous by global setting.
Thank you for your response!
Actually, for us having a singularity there is not a problem because we are not interested in reading Von Mises stresses in that area. We solved the problem by applying surface traction on a small surface.
I have another question to ask you: simulating a contact case between two mechanical components we get a spot distribution (see Fig.1 below) of von mises stresses right in the contact zone with any option of “surface interaction” (tied, hard etc…) and any option of “contact pair” (surface to surface and node to surface). Would you have advice on how to get a more continuous solution as in Ansys (Fig.2)?
Fig1
Fig2
Is there in prepomax an analogue of the “nodal projection” function found in Ansys Mechanical?
Surface to surface is the way to go in such cases, it usually provides much more uniform contact pressure distribution (check this output too). The rest usually depends on the mesh but we can’t see it here.
In penalty based contact you can also try to reduce the contact stiffness.
Hello fteddy, great question!
I am using ANSYS Mechanical and I confirm that projection-based contact detection methods are the best in order to avoid pressure spikes at nodes.
This is what they say in ANSYS help:
Without this method, results are useless.
It would be very nice to have this feature in Prepomax.
fteddy, FEAnalyst, I’m here if you want to learn more about how it is implemented in ANSYS.
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Fig1 refers to the test we did with “surface to surface” option, with mesh size 0.03 mm for both slave and master (seems fine enough). I attach the figure (Fig3) with the mesh, below. The spikes seems not a problem of mesh refinement…
Reducing the contact stiffness would lead, in the experience of my group, to worse accuracy in the solution.
also, there’s Mortar contact options for case of hard type.
probably the problems is in mesh when Mortar contact not working well. Rounded edge is not smooth and uniform, some areas only have two elements another are three, also midside nodes maybe not fit in geometry.