ANSYS Rigid Body Dynamics

Introduction
ANSYS Rigid Body Dynamics is a solver that is tuned for solving purely rigid assemblies -
allowing the user to simulate mechanisms. It is an add-on to the ANSYS Structural and
Mechanical products. This solver is significantly faster than the structural solver for purely rigid
transient dynamic simulations. The ANSYS Rigid Body Dynamics module also has added
interactive joint manipulation and ANSYS Workbench Simulation interface options.

Technical definitions
Looking at the chart defining the various fields of applications of structural mechanics,
Rigid Body Dynamics falls under the "Explicit Transient Dynamics" area. The solver is an
explicit solver - hence its ability to solve transient simulations of rigid models much faster than
the implicit structural solver.

"Rigid Bodies" means that all bodies are assumed to be infinitely stiff. As a result of this, no
estimate of deformations or stresses can be provided by ANSYS Rigid Dynamics. The output
quantities of this solver are forces, velocities, accelerations at joints of the model.
A joint is a link between two parts. It defines which degrees of freedom couple two bodies at a
given location. Many types of joints are available with ANSYS Rigid Dynamics: cylindrical,
translational, revolute... as well as a 'general joint' the user can use to define a specific set of
degrees of freedom.

Joints also include stops and locks so as to be able to restrain the motion between given
boundaries (stops) or lock the model into a given position once reached (locks).

The ANSYS Rigid Body Dynamics also include bushing elements to take damping and
elasticity in the model.

What's it used for?

The ANSYS Rigid Dynamics solver is intended to be used for the study of the relative motion
of parts within an assembly. Typical outputs include forces, velocities or displacement at joints.
It can be used for the design of assemblies.

It can also be used as a basis for a so-called "Rigid-Flexible" analysis. In this case, the module
is used to compute the system under the "fully rigid" assumption and helps properly setup all
connections between part.

Then, the user can decide to analyze stresses and deformations in some parts of the model.
Two methods can be applied:

- load transfer from the rigid analysis at a given time step to a single body for a static
analysis. In this case, the body to be analyzed is isolated from the other parts and investigated
separately.

- full rigid/flexible analysis: one or several bodies are considered as flexible and stresses and
deformations are requested. In this case, a complete new is performed using the implicit
structural solver instead of ANSYS Rigid Body Dynamics. The solution of the ANSYS Rigid
Body Dynamics solver is not used for the mixed rigid/flexible computation.

In the second case, ANSYS Rigid Body Dynamics is used as a way to quickly check the setup
of the full model.

Note: the rigid/flexible simulation allows to fully take into account contact between parts.