Transient Magnetic-Structural

Coupling

Paul Larsen, Ph.D.

ANSYS Inc.

1 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 Motivation

 We want to look at the one-way coupling of a transient

magnetic to transient structural coupled simulation.
 The transient magnetic simulation may have a
complicated transient current/voltage source.
 The force density can be calculated at every transient
time-step and coupled directly to Transient Structural.

2 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 When is it applicable?

 Small displacements so that the one-way coupling is valid.

 Inertia (mass) effects are important, and stiffness is low
(the electromagnetic excitation freq. is same or greater
than structural mode frequencies – see next slide).
 The force changes in step-increments from one time-step
to the next (many time-steps per cycle).
Displacement
Force Low-Inertia High-Inertia

Static Structural Transient Structural Time

or use smaller steps
3 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016
 What is the structural response?

 The structural response has a spectrum that is divided

into regions.
 If the EM excitation frequency is much below fsp then use
static structural solver – otherwise, use transient solver.

4 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 Step 1: Setup & Solve Magnetic Transient

 Set up the Magnetic Transient simulation.

• The geometry needs to contain the relevant mechanical supports unless you can
add them separately – may need extra straight sections to model input/output.
• Save the fields for equal time-steps for the
duration you want to transient simulate.

5 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 Step 2: Add/Connect Transient Structural

 Place the Transient Structural component on the schematic.

• Connect the Maxwell Geometry cell to the Structural Geometry cell.
• Connect the Maxwell Solution cell to the Structural Setup cell.
• Update the Maxwell Solution cell.
• Refresh the Structural Geometry cell.
• Refresh the Structural Setup cell.

 Setup Engineering Data

 Open Transient Structural
• Double-click on Model, Setup, Solution, or Results cell to open.
• The Maxwell force data will be available as an imported load.
• There will be a folder called Imported Load (Maxwell3DSolution 1)

6 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 Step 3: Set up Transient Structural

 Assign geometry
• Suppress any unnecessary objects (no vacuum/air objects necessary).
• Assign materials to all objects (default material: Structural Steel – materials made
available in Engineering Data).

 Create any necessary Mesh refinements

• Mesh determines both force import accuracy and mechanical simulation accuracy.
 Assign any non-Electromagnetic loads/supports

7 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 Step 4: Set up Transient Steps

 Define Transient Analysis Settings

• Number Of Steps set equal to number of saved Maxwell fields
• Step End Time(s) equal to Maxwell saved field times (if saved fields after some
delay, then subtracted minimum saved-field time).
• For each Current Step Number set the Initial Time Step, Minimum Time Step,
Maximum Time Step equal to the step-width.

8 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 Step 5: Set up Imported Load

 On Imported Load, insert:

Body Force Density for Lorentz force (JxB) loads
Surface Force Density for Magnetic Material loads
• Select the imported load density and define rows for every transient time-step
 Source Time is the Saved Fields time step from the Magnetic Simulation
 Analysis Time is the End-Time of the Structural Transient simulation

9 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016

 Step 6: Update Loads and Run Transient

 Right-click on the Imported Load and choose Import Load to

update the force density information.
• You can view the force density distribution by clicking on the imported load, and
choosing a different load-step in Display > Active Row
• You can view the goodness of the force density import/interpolation by looking in
the Imported Load Transfer Summary. There is a separate summary for each load-
step, and the Scaling Factor should be close to 1 when the force is not small (this
number changes when force is small), for every object of importance.

 Run the simulation

10 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. March 17, 2016